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Ayod fire, December 2025 Ayod, Uror

Out · last detection 4 Jan 2026, 11:05 UTC

The fire started on 22 December 2025 in Ayod, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,144 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 401th largest in Jonglei since 2016 (of 427 with a page). Number 281 in South Sudan in 2025, of 292.

Burnt area
5,144ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
13days
22 Dec 2025 – 3 Jan 2026
Municipalities hit
2
counties
Started on
22 Dec
2025
Heat detections
134
in a single hotspot: 74 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
980MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

4 Jan 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Dec3 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

2223242627282930134

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
40km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

47% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,446 ha in 2016, 575 ha in 2021, 41 ha in 2022, 916 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,424 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Ayod where it started
    3,269 ha reached on 15 Dec
    0.2 %
  2. Uror
    1,908 ha reached on 17 Dec
    0.2 %

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.

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)
22 Dec 34.0 °C 18 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
23 Dec 35.0 °C 17 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
24 Dec 35.8 °C 20 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
25 Dec 36.5 °C 19 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
26 Dec 35.7 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
27 Dec 35.7 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
28 Dec 34.6 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
29 Dec 35.0 °C 14 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
30 Dec 33.6 °C 14 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
31 Dec 33.4 °C 13 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
1 Jan 35.3 °C 14 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
2 Jan 33.7 °C 19 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
3 Jan 36.4 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
4 Jan after 35.8 °C 19 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
5 Jan after 35.5 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
6 Jan after 36.6 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
7 Jan after 36.5 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
8 Jan after 37.2 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
9 Jan after 37.6 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
10 Jan after 35.4 °C 16 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
11 Jan after 35.6 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
12 Jan after 35.9 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
13 Jan after 37.2 °C 19 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Dec 2025
After · 10 Jan 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 3 January 2026 the air beside the fire reached 149 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 66: 4.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak149 µg/m³
Days over the guideline17 days
PM10155 µg/m³
Optical depth1.11
202122232425262728293031123456
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 · 134Every 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 Ayod fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 22 December 2025 and 3 January 2026: 13 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 5,144 hectares (51.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Ayod (3,269 ha, 0.2 %); Uror (1,908 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.5 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 40 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

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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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.