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Baliet fire, 2 December 2025 Baliet, Longochuk

Out · last detection 5 Jan 2026, 23:22 UTC

The fire started on 2 December 2025 in Baliet, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 35 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 48,028 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 6th largest in Upper Nile since 2016 (of 285 with a page). Number 21 in South Sudan in 2025, of 293.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Baliet · 2023Baliet · 2024Baliet · 2024Baliet · 2022

Burnt area
48,028ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
35days
2 Dec 2025 – 5 Jan 2026
Municipalities hit
2
counties
Started on
2 Dec
2025
Heat detections
1,669
in a single hotspot: 197 MW
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
440MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Dec5 Jan
5 Jan 2026

How it evolved, day by day

2 Dec 2025 · 65 MW · 9 3 Dec 2025 · 136 MW · 23 4 Dec 2025 · 7 MW · 1 5 Dec 2025 · 7 MW · 2 6 Dec 2025 · 104 MW · 17 7 Dec 2025 · 159 MW · 15 8 Dec 2025 · 274 MW · 33 9 Dec 2025 · 444 MW · 54 10 Dec 2025 · 410 MW · 45 11 Dec 2025 · 1,093 MW · 97 12 Dec 2025 · 1,263 MW · 114 13 Dec 2025 · 979 MW · 124 14 Dec 2025 · 390 MW · 63 15 Dec 2025 · 1,120 MW · 106 16 Dec 2025 · 1,926 MW · 140 17 Dec 2025 · 571 MW · 71 18 Dec 2025 · 785 MW · 113 19 Dec 2025 · 687 MW · 118 20 Dec 2025 · 365 MW · 53 21 Dec 2025 · 408 MW · 57 22 Dec 2025 · 456 MW · 64 23 Dec 2025 · 54 MW · 12 24 Dec 2025 · 25 MW · 6 25 Dec 2025 · 868 MW · 70 26 Dec 2025 · 327 MW · 48 27 Dec 2025 · 450 MW · 38 29 Dec 2025 · 177 MW · 33 30 Dec 2025 · 16 MW · 3 31 Dec 2025 · 338 MW · 35 1 Jan 2026 · 509 MW · 43 2 Jan 2026 · 148 MW · 11 3 Jan 2026 · 118 MW · 19 4 Jan 2026 · 217 MW · 23 5 Jan 2026 · 82 MW · 9
2 Dec 7 Dec 12 Dec 16 Dec 17 Dec 22 Dec 27 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

38°high
43km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

It had gone 26 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

64% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,120 ha in 2016, 2,642 ha in 2017, 1,300 ha in 2018, 251 ha in 2021, 7,079 ha in 2023, 22,056 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 30,714 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 30% of the area of London (480 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. Baliet where it started
    46,046 ha reached on 2 Dec
    3.9 %
  2. Longochuk
    2,312 ha reached on 12 Dec
    0.3 %

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 Rain Danger (FWI)
2 Dec 36.1 °C 20 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
3 Dec 37.0 °C 18 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
4 Dec 36.5 °C 18 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
5 Dec 36.4 °C 19 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
6 Dec 36.7 °C 22 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
7 Dec 36.6 °C 23 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
8 Dec 36.5 °C 25 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
9 Dec 36.9 °C 18 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
10 Dec 36.3 °C 18 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
11 Dec 35.5 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
12 Dec 36.5 °C 17 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
13 Dec 36.0 °C 20 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
14 Dec 35.3 °C 21 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
15 Dec 34.8 °C 18 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
16 Dec 33.5 °C 13 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
17 Dec 34.2 °C 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
18 Dec 33.4 °C 13 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
19 Dec 35.9 °C 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
20 Dec 35.4 °C 16 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
21 Dec 35.3 °C 14 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
22 Dec 35.7 °C 13 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
23 Dec 36.1 °C 13 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
24 Dec 37.4 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
25 Dec 38.0 °C 16 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
26 Dec 37.4 °C 16 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
27 Dec 37.0 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
28 Dec 36.4 °C 15 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
29 Dec 36.1 °C 12 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
30 Dec 34.4 °C 14 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
31 Dec 35.4 °C 12 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
1 Jan 36.1 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
2 Jan 36.5 °C 12 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
3 Jan 37.3 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
4 Jan 37.0 °C 16 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
5 Jan 36.8 °C 16 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
6 Jan after 37.7 °C 16 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
7 Jan after 37.4 °C 19 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
8 Jan after 38.2 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
9 Jan after 38.7 °C 14 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
10 Jan after 36.7 °C 13 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
11 Jan after 36.9 °C 17 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
12 Jan after 37.2 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
13 Jan after 37.7 °C 17 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
14 Jan after 36.8 °C 18 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
15 Jan after 36.1 °C 20 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Nov 2025
After · 12 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 23 December 2025 the air beside the fire reached 71 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 30: 2.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak71 µg/m³
Days over the guideline18 days
PM10101 µg/m³
Optical depth0.59
45678910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031123456
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 · 1,669Every 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 Baliet fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 2 December 2025 to 5 January 2026 (35 days). The perimeter dates it from 6 December 2025 to 3 January 2026.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 48,028 hectares (480.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Baliet (46,046 ha, 3.9 %); Longochuk (2,312 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.0 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 61, 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.
  1. Last day with fire: 3 January 2026 → 5 January 2026.
  2. Start date: 6 December 2025 → 2 December 2025.

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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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 6 December 2025 to 3 January 2026. 1,669 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.