How long did the Baliet fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 2 December 2024 to 5 January 2025 (35 days). The perimeter dates it from 9 December 2024 to 29 December 2024.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 36,659 hectares (366.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Baliet (36,925 ha, 3.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 38.9 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 65, 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.

SS · South Sudan · 2024-12-02 → 2025-01-05

Baliet fire, 2 December 2024 Baliet

Out · last detection 6 Jan 2025, 11:07 UTC

The fire started on 2 December 2024 in Baliet, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 35 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 36,659 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 11th largest in Upper Nile since 2016 (of 285 with a page). Number 7 in South Sudan in 2024, of 180.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Baliet · 2026 Baliet · 2024 Baliet · 2019 Baliet · 2023

Burnt area: 36,659ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 35days; 2 Dec 2024 – 5 Jan 2025
Municipalities hit: 1; counties
Started on: 2 Dec; 2024
Heat detections: 1,824; in a single hotspot: 162 MW
Danger at start: 50; Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power: 424MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Dec5 Jan

Play back 6 Jan 2025

How it evolved, day by day

2 Dec 7 Dec 13 Dec 18 Dec 23 Dec 28 Dec 2 Jan

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

The weather it burned in

39°high

49km/h · peak gust

12%lowest humidity

It had gone 31 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

20% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,267 ha in 2016, 1,673 ha in 2019, 1,965 ha in 2020, 695 ha in 2022, 2,296 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,167 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 23% of the area of London (367 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

Baliet where it started

36,925 ha reached on 2 Dec

3.1 %

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 2025

Built-up area< 0.1 ha

Residents< 20

Inside 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	Danger (FWI)
2 Dec	36.0 °C	16 %	36 km/h	Extreme 50
3 Dec	37.1 °C	18 %	35 km/h	Extreme 50
4 Dec	36.9 °C	18 %	40 km/h	Extreme 54
5 Dec	36.9 °C	19 %	37 km/h	Extreme 52
6 Dec	36.9 °C	21 %	37 km/h	Extreme 52
7 Dec	38.7 °C	16 %	34 km/h	Extreme 51
8 Dec	38.3 °C	15 %	27 km/h	Very high 44
9 Dec	38.2 °C	14 %	28 km/h	Very high 46
10 Dec	38.6 °C	14 %	36 km/h	Extreme 54
11 Dec	38.6 °C	17 %	37 km/h	Extreme 54
12 Dec	37.8 °C	21 %	32 km/h	Very high 49
13 Dec	38.5 °C	18 %	30 km/h	Very high 48
14 Dec	37.1 °C	19 %	43 km/h	Extreme 59
15 Dec	37.1 °C	20 %	43 km/h	Extreme 59
16 Dec	37.6 °C	21 %	39 km/h	Extreme 55
17 Dec	38.0 °C	19 %	33 km/h	Extreme 52
18 Dec	38.3 °C	14 %	33 km/h	Extreme 52
19 Dec	38.0 °C	13 %	31 km/h	Extreme 50
20 Dec	37.7 °C	14 %	47 km/h	Extreme 63
21 Dec	36.3 °C	14 %	48 km/h	Extreme 65
22 Dec	36.1 °C	17 %	42 km/h	Extreme 60
23 Dec	36.1 °C	17 %	38 km/h	Extreme 58
24 Dec	36.2 °C	15 %	43 km/h	Extreme 62
25 Dec	36.4 °C	14 %	41 km/h	Extreme 61
26 Dec	36.4 °C	12 %	38 km/h	Extreme 59
27 Dec	36.7 °C	17 %	36 km/h	Extreme 57
28 Dec	36.2 °C	21 %	41 km/h	Extreme 57
29 Dec	37.3 °C	22 %	38 km/h	Extreme 55
30 Dec	37.2 °C	17 %	41 km/h	Extreme 58
31 Dec	36.3 °C	18 %	49 km/h	Extreme 64
1 Jan	35.9 °C	17 %	49 km/h	Extreme 65
2 Jan	36.9 °C	16 %	45 km/h	Extreme 61
3 Jan	38.0 °C	15 %	38 km/h	Extreme 56
4 Jan	37.8 °C	16 %	32 km/h	Extreme 52
5 Jan	38.9 °C	13 %	34 km/h	Extreme 54
6 Jan after	36.9 °C	16 %	46 km/h	Extreme 65
7 Jan after	35.4 °C	12 %	45 km/h	Extreme 64
8 Jan after	36.8 °C	13 %	37 km/h	Extreme 57
9 Jan after	37.6 °C	13 %	35 km/h	Extreme 56
10 Jan after	36.7 °C	13 %	42 km/h	Extreme 62
11 Jan after	35.8 °C	14 %	43 km/h	Extreme 63
12 Jan after	34.8 °C	13 %	45 km/h	Extreme 66
13 Jan after	36.1 °C	15 %	38 km/h	Extreme 60
14 Jan after	37.7 °C	12 %	40 km/h	Extreme 61
15 Jan after	38.9 °C	15 %	38 km/h	Extreme 59

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 25 Nov 2024

After · 12 Jan 2025

Before After

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 10 December 2024 the air beside the fire reached 40 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 24: 1.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak40 µg/m³

Days over the guideline11 days

PM10107 µg/m³

Optical depth0.39

WHO 15

789101112131415161718192021222324252627282930311

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 · 1,824Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in South Sudan ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Baliet fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 2 December 2024 to 5 January 2025 (35 days). The perimeter dates it from 9 December 2024 to 29 December 2024.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 36,659 hectares (366.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Baliet (36,925 ha, 3.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 38.9 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 65, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

26 October 2026 Last day with fire: 29 December 2024 → 5 January 2025.
26 October 2026 Start date: 9 December 2024 → 2 December 2024.

RSS Changes to this page

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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What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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How we know this

Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 9 December 2024 to 29 December 2024. 1,824 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.

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.

Where it burned