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Ghadeer fire, 20 December 2023 Ghadeer

Out · last detection 25 Dec 2023, 10:54 UTC

The fire started on 20 December 2023 in Ghadeer, Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,390 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 41th largest in South Kordofan since 2016 (of 442 with a page). Number 8 in Sudan in 2023, of 95.

Burnt area
6,390ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
20 Dec 2023 – 24 Dec 2023
Municipalities hit
1
localities
Started on
20 Dec
2023
Heat detections
220
in a single hotspot: 126 MW
Danger at start
53
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
2.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

25 Dec 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Dec24 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

202122232425

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
49km/h · peak gust
8%lowest humidity

It had gone 36 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

93% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 814 ha in 2016, 1,539 ha in 2017, 2,000 ha in 2019, 3,031 ha in 2020, 4,944 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,919 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Ghadeer where it started
    6,422 ha reached on 20 Dec
    1.0 %

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)
20 Dec 38.4 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
21 Dec 39.2 °C 12 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
22 Dec 39.1 °C 10 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
23 Dec 37.4 °C 10 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
24 Dec 36.7 °C 8 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
25 Dec after 36.9 °C 11 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
26 Dec after 36.7 °C 16 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
27 Dec after 36.8 °C 15 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
28 Dec after 36.2 °C 11 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
29 Dec after 36.4 °C 10 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
30 Dec after 36.0 °C 12 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
31 Dec after 36.4 °C 10 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
1 Jan after 36.9 °C 14 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
2 Jan after 37.2 °C 12 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
3 Jan after 36.5 °C 9 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Dec 2023
After · 31 Dec 2023

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 · 220Every 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 Sudan ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Ghadeer fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 20 December 2023 and 24 December 2023: 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 6,390 hectares (63.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Ghadeer (6,422 ha, 1.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.2 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 67, 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

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.