Ghadeer fire, 17 October 2026 Ghadeer
The fire started on 17 October 2026 in Ghadeer, Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,667 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 248th largest in South Kordofan since 2016 (of 447 with a page). Number 143 in Sudan in 2026, of 249.
The power measured by the satellite is low (22.5 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Compare with…
Is it still active?
Satellites detected fire on 27 Oct 2026, 11:25 UTC. Everything suggests it is still burning. Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
- Burnt area
- 2,667ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 11days
- 17 Oct 2026 – 27 Oct 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- localities
- Started on
- 17 Oct
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 34
- in a single hotspot: 23 MW
- Danger at start
- 53
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 25MW
- 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 17 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: 1,988 ha in 2016, 1,027 ha in 2017, 1 ha in 2018, 1,325 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,490 ha that had burned before.
- 1,988 ha Ghadeer fire, October 2016 5,359 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,190 ha Ghadeer fire, November 2025 3,881 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,027 ha Ghadeer fire, October 2017 4,047 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 started2,688 ha reached on 19 Oct0.4 %
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) · forecast models, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17 Oct | 38.6 °C | 15 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 18 Oct | 37.9 °C | 24 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 19 Oct | 40.3 °C | 14 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 20 Oct | 38.9 °C | 21 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 21 Oct | 41.3 °C | 14 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 22 Oct | 40.7 °C | 11 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 23 Oct | 40.0 °C | 13 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 67 |
| 24 Oct | 39.4 °C | 14 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 66 |
| 25 Oct | 39.3 °C | 12 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 68 |
| 26 Oct | 38.2 °C | 13 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 27 Oct | 38.0 °C | 10 % | 33 km/h | 0.2 mm | Extreme 66 |
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 17 October 2026 the air beside the fire reached 58 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 34: 2.3 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 · 34Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 5,359 haGhadeerOctober 2016 · 5 days · 0 km away
- 4,047 haGhadeer18 October 2017 · 10 days · 4 km away
- 6,271 haHeibanJanuary 2026 · 4 days · 14 km away
- 6,160 haGhadeerJanuary 2021 · 3 days · 16 km away
- 3,958 haHeiban21 December 2021 · 4 days · 18 km away
- 4,061 haTalawdi16 November 2023 · 8 days · 38 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Ghadeer fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 17 October 2026 to 27 October 2026 (11 days). The perimeter dates it from 19 October 2026 to 26 October 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,667 hectares (26.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Ghadeer (2,688 ha, 0.4 %).
- Is the Ghadeer fire still active?
- Yes: satellites detected fire on 27 Oct 2026, 11:25 UTC. Check the emergency service for the official status.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 41.3 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 68, 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
History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 27 October 2026.
- Page published (2,667 ha).
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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 19 October 2026 to 26 October 2026. 34 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: ECMWF IFS model, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives.
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.