Aweil Centre fire, 5 December 2024 Raga, Aweil Centre, Aweil West
The fire started on 5 December 2024 in Aweil Centre, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,702 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 21th largest in Northern Bahr el Ghazal since 2016 (of 53 with a page). Number 58 in South Sudan in 2024, of 185.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 10,702ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 16days
- 5 Dec 2024 – 20 Dec 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- counties
- Started on
- 5 Dec
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 461
- in a single hotspot: 138 MW
- Danger at start
- 45
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 315MW
- detected power per day, on average
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.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 33 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
93% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,578 ha in 2016, 4,684 ha in 2017, 4,018 ha in 2019, 3,512 ha in 2020, 4,093 ha in 2021, 4,495 ha in 2022, 637 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 9,966 ha that had burned before.
- 2,468 ha Aweil Centre fire, November 2017 8,567 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,355 ha Aweil Centre fire, November 2021 11,141 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 696 ha Aweil Centre fire, December 2020 13,867 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 562 ha Aweil West fire, November 2017 7,171 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 537 ha Aweil West fire, December 2020 8,599 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 34 ha Raga fire, November 2016 17,598 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
6,124 ha reached on 7 Dec0.1 %
-
Aweil Centre where it started4,242 ha reached on 5 Dec0.4 %
-
405 ha reached on 10 Dec0.1 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2025Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
The weather day by day
ECMWF ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, the standard reference for past weather, and the Canadian Fire Weather Index (the same system Copernicus uses), computed by WorldFires from that data. Days after the fire run until the first rain.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7 Dec | 36.3 °C | 17 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 8 Dec | 37.0 °C | 17 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 9 Dec | 36.5 °C | 16 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 10 Dec | 36.1 °C | 16 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 11 Dec | 35.2 °C | 16 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 12 Dec | 35.6 °C | 17 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 13 Dec | 36.4 °C | 17 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 14 Dec | 34.7 °C | 16 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 15 Dec | 33.7 °C | 15 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 16 Dec | 34.6 °C | 15 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 17 Dec | 35.9 °C | 16 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 18 Dec | 36.3 °C | 17 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 19 Dec | 37.1 °C | 16 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 20 Dec | 35.8 °C | 16 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 21 Dec after | 33.8 °C | 12 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 22 Dec after | 34.1 °C | 13 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 23 Dec after | 34.8 °C | 12 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 24 Dec after | 35.1 °C | 15 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 25 Dec after | 34.9 °C | 13 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 26 Dec after | 35.4 °C | 12 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
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.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 12 December 2024 the air beside the fire reached 79 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 47: 3.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)
Detections table · 461Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 17,598 haRaga30 November 2016 · 23 days · 20 km away
- 41,974 haAweil Centre5 December 2024 · 29 days · 24 km away
- 42,442 haAweil Centre19 November 2017 · 25 days · 31 km away
- 179,432 haAweil CentreOctober 2025 · 59 days · 33 km away
- 16,064 haAweil Centre25 November 2021 · 6 days · 34 km away
- 36,949 haAweil Centre27 November 2021 · 25 days · 40 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Aweil Centre fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 5 December 2024 to 20 December 2024 (16 days). The perimeter dates it from 7 December 2024 to 16 December 2024.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 10,702 hectares (107.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Raga (6,124 ha, 0.1 %); Aweil Centre (4,242 ha, 0.4 %); Aweil West (405 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.0 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, class Extreme.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of South 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
History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 16 December 2024 → 20 December 2024.
- Start date: 7 December 2024 → 5 December 2024.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 7 December 2024 to 16 December 2024. 461 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.