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Ghadeer fire, 5 November 2025 Ghadeer

Out · last detection 9 Nov 2025, 11:55 UTC

The fire started on 5 November 2025 in Ghadeer, Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,881 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 114th largest in South Kordofan since 2016 (of 440 with a page). Number 109 in Sudan in 2025, of 390.

Burnt area
3,881ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
5 Nov 2025 – 9 Nov 2025
Municipalities hit
1
localities
Started on
5 Nov
2025
Heat detections
90
in a single hotspot: 104 MW
Danger at start
26
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

9 Nov 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Nov9 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

6789

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
38km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

It had gone 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

78% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,622 ha in 2016, 1,050 ha in 2017, 161 ha in 2018, 734 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,039 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Ghadeer where it started
    3,911 ha reached on 29 Oct
    0.6 %

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)
5 Nov 35.5 °C 20 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
6 Nov 34.8 °C 19 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
7 Nov 35.5 °C 18 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
8 Nov 35.0 °C 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
9 Nov 34.7 °C 19 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
10 Nov after 34.4 °C 22 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
11 Nov after 35.2 °C 21 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
12 Nov after 34.9 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
13 Nov after 35.0 °C 18 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
14 Nov after 34.0 °C 16 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
15 Nov after 32.0 °C 17 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
16 Nov after 31.9 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
17 Nov after 33.7 °C 19 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
18 Nov after 34.6 °C 22 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
19 Nov after 34.9 °C 21 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Oct 2025
After · 16 Nov 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 9 November 2025 the air beside the fire reached 30 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 24: 1.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak30 µg/m³
Days over the guideline8 days
PM10106 µg/m³
Optical depth0.40
3456789101112
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 · 90Every 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 5 November 2025 and 9 November 2025: 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 3,881 hectares (38.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Ghadeer (3,911 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.5 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 33, class 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

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.