Ghadeer fire, 24 November 2023 Ghadeer
The fire started on 24 November 2023 in Ghadeer, Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,749 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 126th largest in South Kordofan since 2016 (of 442 with a page). Number 20 in Sudan in 2023, of 95.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 3,749ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 6days
- 24 Nov 2023 – 29 Nov 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- localities
- Started on
- 24 Nov
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 99
- in a single hotspot: 106 MW
- Danger at start
- 36
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 285MW
- 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 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
95% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,169 ha in 2016, 1,816 ha in 2017, 1,187 ha in 2019, 2,286 ha in 2020, 2,096 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,580 ha that had burned before.
- 2,096 ha Al Leri fire, November 2021 88,958 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,139 ha Ghadeer fire, November 2016 17,636 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,107 ha Ghadeer fire, December 2020 3,024 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 621 ha Ghadeer fire, November 2019 17,958 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 561 ha Ghadeer fire, November 2017 19,361 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 522 ha Al Leri fire, November 2020 5,347 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 520 ha Ghadeer fire, November 2017 5,855 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 28 ha Ghadeer fire, November 2016 2,031 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
-
Ghadeer where it started3,766 ha reached on 24 Nov0.6 %
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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 24 Nov | 39.7 °C | 16 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 25 Nov | 39.4 °C | 18 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 26 Nov | 40.0 °C | 15 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 27 Nov | 39.1 °C | 19 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 28 Nov | 39.9 °C | 13 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 29 Nov | 39.5 °C | 16 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 30 Nov after | 39.2 °C | 17 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 1 Dec after | 39.2 °C | 14 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 2 Dec after | 39.0 °C | 13 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 3 Dec after | 38.6 °C | 16 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 4 Dec after | 38.5 °C | 16 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 5 Dec after | 37.7 °C | 16 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 6 Dec after | 38.1 °C | 12 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 7 Dec after | 38.4 °C | 13 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 8 Dec after | 38.7 °C | 10 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 9 Dec after | 38.1 °C | 10 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
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 2023 the air beside the fire reached 136 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 58: 3.9 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 · 99Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 17,636 haGhadeer3 November 2016 · 8 days · 5 km away
- 19,361 haGhadeer9 November 2017 · 7 days · 10 km away
- 26,225 haGhadeer19 December 2025 · 22 days · 13 km away
- 19,334 haGhadeer3 December 2024 · 10 days · 16 km away
- 17,958 haGhadeer27 November 2019 · 12 days · 17 km away
- 19,743 haGhadeer8 December 2025 · 17 days · 24 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Ghadeer fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 24 November 2023 and 29 November 2023: 6 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 3,749 hectares (37.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Ghadeer (3,766 ha, 0.6 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 40.0 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 30 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, class Very high.
- 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.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 99 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.
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.