Baliet fire, 25 January 2026 Baliet
The fire started on 25 January 2026 in Baliet, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,961 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 197th largest in Upper Nile since 2016 (of 286 with a page). Number 139 in South Sudan in 2026, of 199.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Baliet · 2021Baliet · 2018Baliet · 2020Baliet · 2023
- Burnt area
- 5,961ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 8days
- 25 Jan 2026 – 1 Feb 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- counties
- Started on
- 25 Jan
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 179
- in a single hotspot: 278 MW
- Danger at start
- 69
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 360MW
- 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 more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,072 ha in 2016, 456 ha in 2017, 4,340 ha in 2018, 2,778 ha in 2019, 3,325 ha in 2020, 5,469 ha in 2021, 5,652 ha in 2023, 2,277 ha in 2024, 69 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,998 ha that had burned before.
- 4,533 ha Baliet fire, December 2021 13,698 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,327 ha Baliet fire, January 2018 9,468 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,400 ha Baliet fire, December 2020 5,705 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,862 ha Baliet fire, December 2023 10,902 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,589 ha Baliet fire, December 2024 13,001 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 756 ha Baliet fire, November 2016 5,876 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 750 ha Baliet fire, December 2019 6,944 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 533 ha Baliet fire, February 2020 5,343 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
-
Baliet where it started6,002 ha reached on 25 Jan0.5 %
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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25 Jan | 39.8 °C | 9 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 69 |
| 26 Jan | 39.3 °C | 12 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 65 |
| 27 Jan | 38.5 °C | 11 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 69 |
| 28 Jan | 37.3 °C | 12 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 72 |
| 29 Jan | 37.4 °C | 14 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 69 |
| 30 Jan | 37.3 °C | 17 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 31 Jan | 37.3 °C | 11 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 65 |
| 1 Feb | 37.1 °C | 10 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 2 Feb after | 37.7 °C | 15 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 3 Feb after | 38.5 °C | 12 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 66 |
| 4 Feb after | 38.9 °C | 13 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 65 |
| 5 Feb after | 37.5 °C | 14 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 6 Feb after | 37.6 °C | 14 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 7 Feb after | 38.2 °C | 11 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 8 Feb after | 38.7 °C | 10 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 66 |
| 9 Feb after | 38.7 °C | 9 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 10 Feb after | 37.3 °C | 8 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 11 Feb after | 38.7 °C | 13 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
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 29 January 2026 the air beside the fire reached 48 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 31: 2.1 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 · 179Every 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 Baliet fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 25 January 2026 to 1 February 2026 (8 days). The perimeter dates it from 25 January 2026 to 27 January 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,961 hectares (59.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Baliet (6,002 ha, 0.5 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 39.8 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 72, class Very 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: 27 January 2026 → 1 February 2026.
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.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 25 January 2026 to 27 January 2026. 179 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.