Dilling fire, 17 November 2025 Dilling, Habila - SK
The fire started on 17 November 2025 in Dilling, Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,784 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 14th largest in South Kordofan since 2016 (of 442 with a page). Number 23 in Sudan in 2025, of 390.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 10,784ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 13days
- 17 Nov 2025 – 29 Nov 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- localities
- Started on
- 17 Nov
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 286
- in a single hotspot: 62 MW
- Danger at start
- 49
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 164MW
- 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 26 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
61% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,406 ha in 2016, 2,840 ha in 2017, 1,168 ha in 2019, 2,838 ha in 2020, 60 ha in 2021, 179 ha in 2022, 1,322 ha in 2023, 567 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,532 ha that had burned before.
- 1,442 ha Dilling fire, November 2020 3,467 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,322 ha Dilling fire, November 2023 2,470 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 863 ha Dilling fire, November 2016 2,964 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 109 ha Dilling fire, December 2020 4,195 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 56 ha Dilling fire, October 2017 2,970 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
-
Dilling where it started9,835 ha reached on 16 Nov2.6 %
-
1,000 ha reached on 20 Nov0.2 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17 Nov | 33.2 °C | 17 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 18 Nov | 34.5 °C | 20 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 19 Nov | 34.8 °C | 19 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 20 Nov | 35.1 °C | 16 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 21 Nov | 34.8 °C | 15 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 22 Nov | 35.5 °C | 16 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 23 Nov | 35.9 °C | 17 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 24 Nov | 36.3 °C | 15 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 25 Nov | 35.7 °C | 14 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 26 Nov | 35.0 °C | 13 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 27 Nov | 35.1 °C | 14 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 28 Nov | 34.9 °C | 15 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 29 Nov | 35.6 °C | 17 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 30 Nov after | 35.6 °C | 17 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 1 Dec after | 35.4 °C | 17 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 2 Dec after | 35.3 °C | 16 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 3 Dec after | 35.4 °C | 16 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 4 Dec after | 35.6 °C | 16 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 5 Dec after | 36.2 °C | 13 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 6 Dec after | 36.1 °C | 14 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 7 Dec after | 35.5 °C | 16 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 8 Dec after | 35.9 °C | 16 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 9 Dec after | 33.6 °C | 15 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
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 2 December 2025 the air beside the fire reached 48 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 30: 2.0 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 · 286Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 4,791 haHabila - SK October 2026 · 5 days · 12 km away
- 4,195 haDillingDecember 2020 · 2 days · 16 km away
- 4,248 haAl Lagowa 13 October 2026 · 11 days · 29 km away
- 3,920 haAl LagowaDecember 2018 · 5 days · 29 km away
- 3,841 haAr Reif Ash ShargiDecember 2024 · 3 days · 34 km away
- 3,751 haAr Reif Ash Shargi16 December 2025 · 7 days · 37 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Dilling fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 17 November 2025 and 29 November 2025: 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 10,784 hectares (107.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Dilling (9,835 ha, 2.6 %); Habila - SK (1,000 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.3 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 57, class Extreme.
- 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
History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 286 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.