Dilling fire, April 2019 Dilling
The fire started on 3 April 2019 in Dilling, Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,438 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 290th largest in South Kordofan since 2016 (of 440 with a page). Number 74 in Sudan in 2019, of 132.
The power measured by the satellite is low (21.8 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
- Burnt area
- 2,438ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 5days
- 3 Apr 2019 – 7 Apr 2019
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- localities
- Started on
- 3 Apr
- 2019
- Heat detections
- 91
- in a single hotspot: 22 MW
- Energy released
- 577MW
- sum of detected power
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.
This area had burned before
17% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3 ha in 2016, 353 ha in 2017, 220 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 407 ha that had burned before.
What happened to each town
-
Dilling where it started2,450 ha reached on 3 Apr0.7 %
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.
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.
Detections table · 91Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 4,195 haDillingDecember 2020 · 2 days · 3 km away
- 3,920 haAl LagowaDecember 2018 · 5 days · 12 km away
- 10,784 haDilling17 November 2025 · 13 days · 19 km away
- 3,945 haAl LagowaApril 2026 · 6 days · 19 km away
- 4,791 haHabila - SK October 2026 · 5 days · 24 km away
- 5,274 haAs Sunut9 March 2024 · 3 days · 39 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Dilling fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 April 2019 and 7 April 2019: 5 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 2,438 hectares (24.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Dilling (2,450 ha, 0.7 %).
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of 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.
Report an error
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.