Skip to content
worldfires
en
SD · Sudan · →

Mukjar fire, 11 December 2023 Mukjar

Out · last detection 15 Dec 2023, 12:23 UTC

The fire started on 11 December 2023 in Mukjar, Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,553 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 7th largest in Central Darfur since 2016 (of 45 with a page). Number 12 in Sudan in 2023, of 95.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Mukjar · 2017Mukjar · 2020Wadi Salih · 2016Mukjar · 2016

Burnt area
4,553ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
11 Dec 2023 – 14 Dec 2023
Municipalities hit
1
localities
Started on
11 Dec
2023
Heat detections
119
in a single hotspot: 110 MW
Danger at start
49
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
180MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Dec14 Dec
15 Dec 2023

How it evolved, day by day

11 Dec 2023 · 444 MW · 25 12 Dec 2023 · 235 MW · 36 13 Dec 2023 · 158 MW · 46 14 Dec 2023 · 41 MW · 7 15 Dec 2023 · 22 MW · 5
11 Dec 12 Dec 13 Dec 14 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

32°high
28km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 27 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

16% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 270 ha in 2017, 458 ha in 2021.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 2.9% of the area of London (46 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. Mukjar where it started
    4,589 ha reached on 11 Dec
    0.7 %

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) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
11 Dec 32.3 °C 13 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
12 Dec 30.9 °C 13 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
13 Dec 29.9 °C 14 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
14 Dec 28.9 °C 14 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
15 Dec after 28.4 °C 11 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
16 Dec after 29.3 °C 11 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
17 Dec after 31.8 °C 11 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
18 Dec after 31.8 °C 13 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
19 Dec after 32.2 °C 14 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
20 Dec after 32.6 °C 13 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
21 Dec after 32.7 °C 9 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
22 Dec after 33.1 °C 11 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
23 Dec after 32.7 °C 11 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
24 Dec after 31.8 °C 11 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Dec 2023
After · 21 Dec 2023

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 13 December 2023 the air beside the fire reached 87 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 48: 3.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak87 µg/m³
Days over the guideline9 days
PM10264 µg/m³
Optical depth0.45
91011121314151617
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 · 119Every 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 Mukjar fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 11 December 2023 and 14 December 2023: 4 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 4,553 hectares (45.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mukjar (4,589 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.3 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 28 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 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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

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.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

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

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 119 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.

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.