Aweil North fire, October 2025 Aweil North
The fire started on 31 October 2025 in Aweil North, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 27 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 60,087 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 3th largest in Northern Bahr el Ghazal since 2016 (of 55 with a page). Number 17 in South Sudan in 2025, of 292.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 60,087ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 27days
- 31 Oct 2025 – 26 Nov 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- counties
- Started on
- 31 Oct
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 1,537
- in a single hotspot: 113 MW
- Danger at start
- 26
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 313MW
- 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 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
76% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 9,208 ha in 2016, 12,251 ha in 2017, 1,700 ha in 2018, 13,631 ha in 2019, 15,709 ha in 2020, 19,183 ha in 2021, 6,260 ha in 2022, 3,216 ha in 2023, 7,281 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 45,502 ha that had burned before.
- 5,748 ha Aweil North fire, November 2021 15,596 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,196 ha Aweil North fire, November 2020 12,185 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,947 ha Aweil North fire, October 2016 21,192 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,997 ha Aweil North fire, November 2020 5,028 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,268 ha Aweil North fire, November 2019 9,600 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,216 ha Bahr Al Arab fire, November 2023 7,180 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,206 ha Bahr Al Arab fire, October 2017 5,970 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,015 ha Bahr Al Arab fire, December 2022 4,365 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
-
Aweil North where it started49,359 ha reached on 31 Oct7.7 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 31 Oct | 34.8 °C | 25 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 1 Nov | 33.8 °C | 33 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 2 Nov | 35.6 °C | 26 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 3 Nov | 35.2 °C | 29 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 4 Nov | 34.3 °C | 28 % | 25 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 26 |
| 5 Nov | 35.7 °C | 29 % | 29 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 31 |
| 6 Nov | 35.3 °C | 23 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 7 Nov | 36.7 °C | 13 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 8 Nov | 37.1 °C | 10 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 9 Nov | 36.4 °C | 11 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 10 Nov | 36.2 °C | 13 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 11 Nov | 36.7 °C | 16 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 12 Nov | 36.5 °C | 19 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 13 Nov | 36.9 °C | 18 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 14 Nov | 36.1 °C | 14 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 15 Nov | 33.5 °C | 12 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 16 Nov | 33.3 °C | 13 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 17 Nov | 34.4 °C | 14 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 18 Nov | 35.5 °C | 16 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 19 Nov | 36.4 °C | 18 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 20 Nov | 36.6 °C | 15 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 21 Nov | 36.2 °C | 11 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 22 Nov | 37.1 °C | 13 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 23 Nov | 37.1 °C | 18 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 24 Nov | 36.6 °C | 19 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 25 Nov | 36.6 °C | 17 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 26 Nov | 36.8 °C | 14 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 27 Nov after | 36.6 °C | 13 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 28 Nov after | 36.5 °C | 13 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 29 Nov after | 36.7 °C | 14 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 30 Nov after | 37.3 °C | 16 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 1 Dec after | 36.9 °C | 18 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 2 Dec after | 36.5 °C | 18 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 3 Dec after | 36.4 °C | 17 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 4 Dec after | 36.4 °C | 17 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 5 Dec after | 36.9 °C | 13 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 6 Dec after | 36.4 °C | 18 % | 27 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 11 November 2025 the air beside the fire reached 110 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 55: 3.7 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 · 1,537Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Aweil North fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 31 October 2025 to 26 November 2025 (27 days). The perimeter dates it from 31 October 2025 to 20 November 2025.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 60,087 hectares (600.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Aweil North (49,359 ha, 7.7 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.1 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, 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 · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 20 November 2025 → 26 November 2025.
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; 4 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 31 October 2025 to 20 November 2025. 1,537 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.