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Ghadeer fire, 2 December 2024 Ghadeer

Out · last detection 5 Dec 2024, 11:06 UTC

The fire started on 2 December 2024 in Ghadeer, Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,960 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 208th largest in South Kordofan since 2016 (of 440 with a page). Number 34 in Sudan in 2024, of 89.

Burnt area
2,960ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
2 Dec 2024 – 4 Dec 2024
Municipalities hit
1
localities
Started on
2 Dec
2024
Heat detections
97
in a single hotspot: 106 MW
Danger at start
51
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
2.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

5 Dec 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Dec4 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

2345

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
42km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 37 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

94% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 874 ha in 2016, 1,487 ha in 2017, 678 ha in 2019, 1,151 ha in 2020, 2,686 ha in 2021, 70 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,790 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Ghadeer where it started
    2,973 ha reached on 2 Dec
    0.4 %

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.

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)
2 Dec 35.5 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
3 Dec 36.3 °C 15 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
4 Dec 36.2 °C 14 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
5 Dec after 36.2 °C 17 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
6 Dec after 36.8 °C 19 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
7 Dec after 38.3 °C 16 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
8 Dec after 39.2 °C 11 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
9 Dec after 38.4 °C 13 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
10 Dec after 38.1 °C 16 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
11 Dec after 38.1 °C 17 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
12 Dec after 38.1 °C 19 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
13 Dec after 38.3 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
14 Dec after 36.9 °C 16 % 44 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.

Before · 25 Nov 2024
After · 11 Dec 2024

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 6 December 2024 the air beside the fire reached 46 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 30: 2.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak46 µg/m³
Days over the guideline8 days
PM1084 µg/m³
Optical depth0.51
301234567
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 · 97Every 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 2 December 2024 and 4 December 2024: 3 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 2,960 hectares (29.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Ghadeer (2,973 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.3 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 42 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

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.