Skip to content
worldfires
SS · South Sudan · →

Maridi fire, 3 January 2026 Maridi

Out · last detection 14 Jan 2026, 11:17 UTC

The fire started on 3 January 2026 in Maridi, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,012 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 361th largest in Western Equatoria since 2016 (of 361 with a page). Number 181 in South Sudan in 2026, of 182.

Burnt area
5,012ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
11days
3 Jan 2026 – 13 Jan 2026
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
3 Jan
2026
Heat detections
207
in a single hotspot: 68 MW
Danger at start
36
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

14 Jan 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Jan13 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

345678910121314

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
40km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 18 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

92% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 106 ha in 2016, 2,276 ha in 2017, 1,624 ha in 2018, 561 ha in 2019, 345 ha in 2020, 1,810 ha in 2021, 2,138 ha in 2022, 2,275 ha in 2023, 1,726 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,602 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Maridi where it started
    5,045 ha reached on 30 Dec
    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)
3 Jan 34.5 °C 27 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
4 Jan 35.5 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
5 Jan 34.9 °C 21 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
6 Jan 35.1 °C 21 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
7 Jan 36.0 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
8 Jan 36.6 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
9 Jan 35.5 °C 20 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
10 Jan 34.9 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
11 Jan 34.2 °C 23 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
12 Jan 35.5 °C 22 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 Jan 34.9 °C 22 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
14 Jan after 34.6 °C 23 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
15 Jan after 34.4 °C 23 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
16 Jan after 33.7 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
17 Jan after 34.7 °C 19 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
18 Jan after 35.6 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
19 Jan after 35.6 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
20 Jan after 36.3 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
21 Jan after 34.6 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
22 Jan after 36.4 °C 21 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
23 Jan after 36.3 °C 20 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 27 Dec 2025
After · 20 Jan 2026

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 2 January 2026 the air beside the fire reached 97 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 57: 3.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak97 µg/m³
Days over the guideline16 days
PM10101 µg/m³
Optical depth0.78
12345678910111213141516
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 · 207Every 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 Maridi fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 January 2026 and 13 January 2026: 11 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 5,012 hectares (50.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Maridi (5,045 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.6 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, class Very 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

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
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy.

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.