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SS · South Sudan · –

Aweil Centre fire, October 2026 Aweil Centre

Burning · last detection 7 Nov 2026, 11:19 UTC

The fire started on 29 October 2026 in Aweil Centre, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,145 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

Number 203 in South Sudan in 2026, of 217.

GWIS near-real-time perimeter, from the layer that changed in August 2025: this fire is not compared with fires from earlier years, because since then the GWIS layer gives more and larger perimeters.

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Suggestions: Aweil Centre · 2025Aweil Centre · 2025

Is it still active?

Satellites detected fire on 7 Nov 2026, 11:19 UTC. Everything suggests it is still burning. Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.

Wind, humidity and rain for the next 72 h

Burnt area
5,145ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
29 Oct 2026 – 7 Nov 2026
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
29 Oct
2026
Heat detections
116
in a single hotspot: 53 MW
Danger at start
55
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
190MW
detected power per day, on average

The next 72 hours

The wind is blowing from the south-west and pushing to the north-east; no sharp shifts are expected until Tue 10, 22:00.

ECMWF IFS 0.25° at the centre of the fire · computed 7 Nov 2026, 18:58 UTC

Sun 8, 20:00 – Mon 9, 07:00, local time

No overnight recovery: humidity stays at or below 44 %

Nights usually moisten the vegetation and the fire calms down. Tonight humidity does not reach 55 %, so it may stay active in the small hours.

Mon 9, 20:00 – Tue 10, 07:00, local time

No overnight recovery: humidity stays at or below 19 %

Nights usually moisten the vegetation and the fire calms down. Tonight humidity does not reach 55 %, so it may stay active in the small hours.

Checked, no warning: no wind shifts of more than 60° no useful rain expected (0.0 mm in 72 h)

Hour by hour, local time

Tap the strip to see each hour

Mean wind Gusts where it blows to Relative humidity Night (8 pm to 8 am) Rain (mm) · chance in %

Where is it blowing? The next 48 h

geoBoundaries/South Sudan Information Management Working Group (IMWG), National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), and OCHA, OCHA South Sudan (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY 3.0 IGO)); geoBoundaries/Agency for Technical Cooperation and Development (ACTED), OCHA Central African Republic (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY 3.0 IGO))

At this hour

Places the fan reaches

    Is it heading my way?

    We compare your point with the fan for each hour. Your location never leaves your device.

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    This is not an official warning. It is a global model forecast with cells of about 25 km, at the centre of the fire: it cannot see valley winds or the winds the fire itself creates. The fan shows where the wind blows, not where the fire will spread. If in doubt, follow what the authorities say.

    Forecast: ECMWF IFS 0.25° (European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts), served by our own Open-Meteo instance; the chance of rain comes from the ECMWF ensemble. Variables: wind and gusts at 10 m, wind at 850 hPa, relative humidity and temperature at 2 m, rain. Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0).

    Fire: GWIS / Copernicus (reconstructed from VIIRS) (CC BY 4.0); hotspots from the last 24 h: VIIRS from NASA FIRMS. Boundaries: geoBoundaries/South Sudan Information Management Working Group (IMWG), National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), and OCHA, OCHA South Sudan (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY 3.0 IGO)); geoBoundaries/Agency for Technical Cooperation and Development (ACTED), OCHA Central African Republic (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY 3.0 IGO)).

    How it is worked out: wind shift = a change of more than 60° in 6 h or less, with at least 15 km/h before and after; no overnight recovery = peak humidity between 8 pm and 8 am stays below 55 %; useful rain = 2 mm or more in 6 h. The fan opens 18° plus however much the wind varies within ±3 h and reaches 25 km beyond the edge of the fire: one model cell, not a rate of spread. Methodology

    Where it burned

    HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Oct7 Nov
    7 Nov 2026

    How it evolved, day by day

    29 Oct 2026 · 34 MW · 7 1 Nov 2026 · 21 MW · 3 2 Nov 2026 · 24 MW · 6 3 Nov 2026 · 437 MW · 56 4 Nov 2026 · 547 MW · 35 5 Nov 2026 · 73 MW · 9 6 Nov 2026 · 0 MW · 0 7 Nov 2026 · 0 MW · 0
    29 Oct 2 Nov 4 Nov 6 Nov

    Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

    The weather it burned in

    40°high
    32km/h · peak gust
    10%lowest humidity

    It had gone 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

    This area had burned before

    84% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 817 ha in 2016, 700 ha in 2017, 2,073 ha in 2019, 2,027 ha in 2020, 2,254 ha in 2021, 628 ha in 2024, 1,938 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,332 ha that had burned before.

    How big is it?

    10 km
    It burned the equivalent of 3.2% of the area of London (51 km² against 1,583 km²).

    London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

    This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

    What happened to each town

    1. Aweil Centre where it started
      5,177 ha reached on 29 Oct
      0.5 %

    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.

    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) · forecast models, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives

    Started with Very dry air: 33 % of the area in South Sudan

    Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
    29 Oct 39.2 °C 10 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
    30 Oct 38.5 °C 13 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
    31 Oct 38.3 °C 21 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
    1 Nov 38.0 °C 26 % 23 km/h 0.4 mm High 36
    2 Nov 38.5 °C 22 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
    3 Nov 39.8 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
    4 Nov 39.2 °C 18 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
    5 Nov 39.7 °C 19 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
    6 Nov 39.5 °C 18 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
    7 Nov 37.0 °C 13 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47

    Before and after, from space

    Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

    Before · 22 Oct 2026
    After · 6 Nov 2026

    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 · Copernicus

    On 30 October 2026 the air beside the fire reached 67 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 54: 3.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

    PM2.5 peak67 µg/m³
    Days over the guideline9 days
    PM10171 µg/m³
    Optical depth0.90
    27 Oct29 Oct31 Oct2 Nov4 Nov
    Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

    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 · 116Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
    ⬇ Download CSV Times in UTC. Each detection is a 375 m pixel: a large fire yields hundreds per pass.
    Date and timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

    Other fires nearby

    All fires in South Sudan

    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 29 October 2026 to 7 November 2026 (10 days). The perimeter dates it from 2 November 2026 to 6 November 2026.
    How much area did it burn?
    The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,145 hectares (51.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
    Which municipalities burned?
    The fire only entered Aweil Centre (5,177 ha, 0.5 %).
    Is the Aweil Centre fire still active?
    Yes: satellites detected fire on 7 Nov 2026, 11:19 UTC. Check the emergency service for the official status.
    What was the weather like?
    During the fire the temperature reached 39.8 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 55, class Extreme.
    What weather is expected at the fire over the next 72 hours?
    The wind is blowing from the south-west and pushing to the north-east; no sharp shifts are expected until Tue 10, 22:00. No overnight recovery: humidity stays at or below 44 % (Sun 8, 20:00 – Mon 9, 07:00). No overnight recovery: humidity stays at or below 19 % (Mon 9, 20:00 – Tue 10, 07:00). Times are local time at the fire. ECMWF IFS forecast (Open-Meteo) computed 7 Nov 2026, 18:58 UTC; this is not an official warning.
    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 · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 6 November 2026.
    1. Page published (5,145 ha).

    RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

    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.

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    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 2 November 2026 to 6 November 2026. 116 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
    • We have not matched this page with any official record.
    • Weather: ECMWF IFS model, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives.

    How we build fire pages: methodology

    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.