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Melut fire, 19 November 2025 Melut, Baliet

Out · last detection 3 Dec 2025, 23:40 UTC

The fire started on 19 November 2025 in Melut, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 27,336 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 21th largest in Upper Nile since 2016 (of 284 with a page). Number 33 in South Sudan in 2025, of 292.

Burnt area
27,336ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
15days
19 Nov 2025 – 3 Dec 2025
Municipalities hit
2
counties
Started on
19 Nov
2025
Heat detections
834
in a single hotspot: 142 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
7.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

3 Dec 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Nov3 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

192021222324252627282930123

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
39km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

It had gone 14 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

64% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 179 ha in 2016, 9,109 ha in 2017, 140 ha in 2019, 4,605 ha in 2020, 2,075 ha in 2021, 19 ha in 2022, 1,124 ha in 2023, 6,874 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 17,530 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Melut where it started
    21,930 ha reached on 19 Nov
    3.1 %
  2. Baliet
    5,574 ha reached on 24 Nov
    0.5 %

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)
19 Nov 38.2 °C 16 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
20 Nov 37.2 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
21 Nov 38.1 °C 17 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
22 Nov 37.2 °C 16 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
23 Nov 37.6 °C 20 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
24 Nov 37.9 °C 19 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
25 Nov 38.8 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
26 Nov 38.3 °C 12 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
27 Nov 37.4 °C 13 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
28 Nov 37.8 °C 15 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
29 Nov 38.4 °C 17 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
30 Nov 38.5 °C 16 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
1 Dec 38.1 °C 16 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
2 Dec 37.6 °C 16 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
3 Dec 37.9 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
4 Dec after 37.8 °C 17 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
5 Dec after 37.6 °C 18 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
6 Dec after 37.6 °C 19 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
7 Dec after 37.9 °C 19 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
8 Dec after 37.7 °C 18 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
9 Dec after 38.0 °C 15 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
10 Dec after 36.6 °C 16 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
11 Dec after 35.9 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
12 Dec after 36.9 °C 16 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
13 Dec after 36.5 °C 18 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 12 Nov 2025
After · 10 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 28 November 2025 the air beside the fire reached 84 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 47: 3.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak84 µg/m³
Days over the guideline10 days
PM1087 µg/m³
Optical depth0.98
1718192021222324252627282930123456
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 · 834Every 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 Melut fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 19 November 2025 and 3 December 2025: 15 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 27,336 hectares (273.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Melut (21,930 ha, 3.1 %); Baliet (5,574 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.8 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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.

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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.