Ghadeer fire, December 2022 Ghadeer
The fire started on 10 December 2022 in Ghadeer, Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,428 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 291th largest in South Kordofan since 2016 (of 440 with a page). Number 43 in Sudan in 2022, of 65.
The power measured by the satellite is low (13.6 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
- 2,428ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 5days
- 10 Dec 2022 – 14 Dec 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- localities
- Started on
- 10 Dec
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 10
- in a single hotspot: 14 MW
- Energy released
- 81MW
- 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
82% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 763 ha in 2016, 689 ha in 2017, 483 ha in 2019, 1,046 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,992 ha that had burned before.
- 997 ha Al Leri fire, November 2021 2,047 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 689 ha Ghadeer fire, November 2017 5,855 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 367 ha Ghadeer fire, November 2019 17,958 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 164 ha Ghadeer fire, November 2016 17,636 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 116 ha Ghadeer fire, December 2019 2,253 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Ghadeer where it started2,438 ha reached on 13 Dec0.4 %
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 · 10Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 17,958 haGhadeer27 November 2019 · 12 days · 16 km away
- 26,225 haGhadeer19 December 2025 · 22 days · 19 km away
- 19,334 haGhadeer3 December 2024 · 10 days · 19 km away
- 19,361 haGhadeer9 November 2017 · 7 days · 23 km away
- 19,743 haGhadeer8 December 2025 · 17 days · 25 km away
- 36,698 haFashoda17 November 2021 · 11 days · 34 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Ghadeer fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 10 December 2022 and 14 December 2022: 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 2,428 hectares (24.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Ghadeer (2,438 ha, 0.4 %).
- 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.