Al Dibab fire, January 2018 Al Dibab
The fire started on 23 January 2018 in Al Dibab, Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,417 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 117th largest in West Kordofan since 2016 (of 175 with a page). Number 23 in Sudan in 2018, of 38.
- Burnt area
- 2,417ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 2days
- 23 Jan 2018 – 24 Jan 2018
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- localities
- Started on
- 23 Jan
- 2018
- Heat detections
- 89
- in a single hotspot: 56 MW
- Energy released
- 917MW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
This area had burned before
30% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 730 ha in 2016.
What happened to each town
-
Al Dibab where it started2,432 ha reached on 23 Jan0.3 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.
Detections table · 89Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 10,288 haAl Dibab 14 October 2026 · 10 days · 20 km away
- 3,982 haAl Dibab8 November 2025 · 7 days · 20 km away
- 4,013 haAbyei PCA area10 November 2025 · 8 days · 24 km away
- 4,573 haAl Dibab1 December 2025 · 14 days · 26 km away
- 7,625 haAbyei PCA area12 November 2025 · 6 days · 36 km away
- 3,898 haAbyei PCA area5 November 2025 · 5 days · 37 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Al Dibab fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 23 January 2018 and 24 January 2018: 2 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,417 hectares (24.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Al Dibab (2,432 ha, 0.3 %).
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Sudan (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.
Where to verify it
A satellite detection is not an official report. Final figures and the fire’s status are published by each country’s emergency service.
Satellite cross-check
Does something look wrong on this page?
This page is built from satellite data and official records, and it sometimes gets things wrong: the wrong dates, the wrong town, two fires merged into one, or something that was not a wildfire at all. If you know this fire first-hand (you live nearby, saw it, fought it or reported on it), tell us what really happened and we will check it.
Report an error
Where this data comes from
The perimeter comes from the Copernicus Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS), which rebuilds it from MODIS and VIIRS heat detections and publishes it under CC BY 4.0. It is not measured on imagery as in Europe, so it is an estimate. Heat detections come from the VIIRS sensors aboard Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20, distributed by NASA FIRMS at 375 m resolution. Municipal boundaries come from geoBoundaries ADM2 (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY 3.0 IGO)). The area per municipality is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ from each country’s official figure.