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Duk fire, 11 December 2025 Duk, Uror

Out · last detection 21 Dec 2025, 12:08 UTC

The fire started on 11 December 2025 in Duk, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,351 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 270th largest in Jonglei since 2016 (of 427 with a page). Number 200 in South Sudan in 2025, of 292.

Burnt area
6,351ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
11 Dec 2025 – 20 Dec 2025
Municipalities hit
2
counties
Started on
11 Dec
2025
Heat detections
129
in a single hotspot: 69 MW
Danger at start
38
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

21 Dec 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Dec20 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

11121314151617192021

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
40km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 35 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

77% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 438 ha in 2016, 1,058 ha in 2017, 1,067 ha in 2020, 1,354 ha in 2021, 776 ha in 2022, 1,615 ha in 2023, 3,680 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,890 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Duk where it started
    5,058 ha reached on 11 Dec
    0.7 %
  2. Uror
    1,334 ha reached on 16 Dec
    0.1 %

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.

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)
11 Dec 33.7 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
12 Dec 33.6 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
13 Dec 33.9 °C 22 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
14 Dec 33.0 °C 31 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
15 Dec 32.9 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
16 Dec 32.1 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
17 Dec 33.1 °C 19 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
18 Dec 32.0 °C 17 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
19 Dec 33.1 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
20 Dec 34.0 °C 21 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
21 Dec after 34.2 °C 20 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
22 Dec after 33.9 °C 20 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
23 Dec after 34.6 °C 19 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
24 Dec after 35.7 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
25 Dec after 36.3 °C 21 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
26 Dec after 35.5 °C 22 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
27 Dec after 35.4 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
28 Dec after 34.2 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
29 Dec after 34.6 °C 16 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
30 Dec after 33.2 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Dec 2025
After · 27 Dec 2025

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 77 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 55: 3.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak77 µg/m³
Days over the guideline15 days
PM1079 µg/m³
Optical depth0.97
91011121314151617181920212223
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 · 129Every 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 Duk fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 11 December 2025 and 20 December 2025: 10 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 6,351 hectares (63.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Duk (5,058 ha, 0.7 %); Uror (1,334 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.0 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, class Very high.
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

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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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.