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Juba fire, 17 November 2025 Juba

Out · last detection 15 Dec 2025, 23:17 UTC

The fire started on 17 November 2025 in Juba, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 28 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 18,870 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 4th largest in Central Equatoria since 2016 (of 84 with a page). Number 53 in South Sudan in 2025, of 292.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Juba · 2025Juba · 2026Juba · 2025Torit · 2021

Burnt area
18,870ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
28days
17 Nov 2025 – 14 Dec 2025
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
17 Nov
2025
Heat detections
588
in a single hotspot: 278 MW
Danger at start
13
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
410MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Nov14 Dec
15 Dec 2025

How it evolved, day by day

17 Nov 2025 · 65 MW · 9 18 Nov 2025 · 93 MW · 13 19 Nov 2025 · 4 MW · 1 21 Nov 2025 · 99 MW · 14 22 Nov 2025 · 133 MW · 14 23 Nov 2025 · 42 MW · 7 25 Nov 2025 · 109 MW · 16 26 Nov 2025 · 443 MW · 19 27 Nov 2025 · 212 MW · 32 28 Nov 2025 · 76 MW · 12 29 Nov 2025 · 57 MW · 12 30 Nov 2025 · 699 MW · 50 1 Dec 2025 · 3,397 MW · 146 2 Dec 2025 · 1,469 MW · 99 3 Dec 2025 · 7 MW · 6 4 Dec 2025 · 1,636 MW · 60 5 Dec 2025 · 723 MW · 9 6 Dec 2025 · 203 MW · 9 7 Dec 2025 · 176 MW · 21 8 Dec 2025 · 285 MW · 16 9 Dec 2025 · 19 MW · 5 11 Dec 2025 · 252 MW · 7 13 Dec 2025 · 5 MW · 3 14 Dec 2025 · 16 MW · 5 15 Dec 2025 · 25 MW · 3
17 Nov 22 Nov 27 Nov 1 Dec 5 Dec 9 Dec 15 Dec

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
39km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

70% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,555 ha in 2016, 4,034 ha in 2017, 1,064 ha in 2019, 4,150 ha in 2020, 181 ha in 2021, 240 ha in 2022, 3,007 ha in 2023, 1,744 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 13,213 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 12% of the area of London (189 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Juba where it started
    19,000 ha reached on 17 Nov
    1.0 %

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.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
17 Nov 32.8 °C 43 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
18 Nov 33.5 °C 43 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
19 Nov 34.5 °C 36 % 32 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 14
20 Nov 33.1 °C 40 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
21 Nov 35.3 °C 35 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
22 Nov 35.6 °C 23 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
23 Nov 35.3 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
24 Nov 35.5 °C 29 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
25 Nov 36.1 °C 31 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
26 Nov 35.7 °C 31 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
27 Nov 34.6 °C 34 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
28 Nov 35.6 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
29 Nov 35.5 °C 32 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
30 Nov 36.8 °C 25 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
1 Dec 36.8 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
2 Dec 37.0 °C 16 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
3 Dec 36.1 °C 21 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
4 Dec 36.8 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
5 Dec 35.9 °C 28 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
6 Dec 35.8 °C 31 % 36 km/h 0.1 mm High 32
7 Dec 36.4 °C 30 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
8 Dec 36.4 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
9 Dec 36.4 °C 27 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
10 Dec 33.1 °C 35 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
11 Dec 33.9 °C 33 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
12 Dec 32.0 °C 38 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
13 Dec 30.0 °C 40 % 32 km/h 0.3 mm High 27
14 Dec 33.3 °C 34 % 29 km/h 0.2 mm High 28
15 Dec after 33.9 °C 39 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
16 Dec after 33.0 °C 29 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
17 Dec after 32.7 °C 30 % 25 km/h 0.8 mm High 24
18 Dec after 32.3 °C 26 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
19 Dec after 32.4 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
20 Dec after 33.9 °C 31 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
21 Dec after 32.8 °C 42 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
22 Dec after 34.5 °C 37 % 35 km/h 0.4 mm High 30
23 Dec after 34.3 °C 38 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
24 Dec after 35.8 °C 35 % 34 km/h 0.2 mm High 30

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 10 Nov 2025
After · 21 Dec 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 11 December 2025 the air beside the fire reached 111 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 49: 3.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak111 µg/m³
Days over the guideline9 days
PM10114 µg/m³
Optical depth0.87
2223242526272829301234567891011
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 · 588Every 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 South Sudan ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Juba fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 17 November 2025 to 14 December 2025 (28 days). The perimeter dates it from 24 November 2025 to 8 December 2025.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 18,870 hectares (188.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Juba (19,000 ha, 1.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.0 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 35, class High.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of South 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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 8 December 2025 → 14 December 2025.
  2. Start date: 24 November 2025 → 17 November 2025.

RSS Changes to this page

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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How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 24 November 2025 to 8 December 2025. 588 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.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.