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Nagero fire, 6 December 2023 Nagero

Out · last detection 3 Jan 2024, 00:21 UTC

The fire started on 6 December 2023 in Nagero, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 28 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 27,455 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 36th largest in Western Equatoria since 2016 (of 359 with a page). Number 4 in South Sudan in 2023, of 106.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Nagero · 2016Nzara · 2016Nagero · 2021Nagero · 2021

Burnt area
27,455ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
28days
6 Dec 2023 – 2 Jan 2024
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
6 Dec
2023
Heat detections
1,247
in a single hotspot: 106 MW
Danger at start
19
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
303MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Dec2 Jan
3 Jan 2024

How it evolved, day by day

6 Dec 2023 · 199 MW · 13 7 Dec 2023 · 314 MW · 28 8 Dec 2023 · 17 MW · 4 9 Dec 2023 · 51 MW · 9 10 Dec 2023 · 114 MW · 10 11 Dec 2023 · 81 MW · 7 12 Dec 2023 · 261 MW · 42 13 Dec 2023 · 678 MW · 86 14 Dec 2023 · 91 MW · 32 15 Dec 2023 · 137 MW · 26 16 Dec 2023 · 311 MW · 26 17 Dec 2023 · 206 MW · 28 18 Dec 2023 · 365 MW · 47 19 Dec 2023 · 220 MW · 42 20 Dec 2023 · 47 MW · 10 21 Dec 2023 · 116 MW · 23 22 Dec 2023 · 234 MW · 45 23 Dec 2023 · 521 MW · 79 24 Dec 2023 · 532 MW · 94 25 Dec 2023 · 316 MW · 104 26 Dec 2023 · 572 MW · 98 27 Dec 2023 · 1,537 MW · 109 28 Dec 2023 · 731 MW · 108 29 Dec 2023 · 473 MW · 112 30 Dec 2023 · 451 MW · 38 31 Dec 2023 · 41 MW · 8 1 Jan 2024 · 11 MW · 1 2 Jan 2024 · 158 MW · 14 3 Jan 2024 · 4 MW · 4
6 Dec 11 Dec 16 Dec 21 Dec 26 Dec 27 Dec 31 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

38°high
37km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

89% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 16,108 ha in 2016, 4,956 ha in 2017, 2,027 ha in 2018, 4,740 ha in 2019, 6,037 ha in 2020, 8,102 ha in 2021, 6,393 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 24,362 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 17% of the area of London (275 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. Nagero where it started
    27,645 ha reached on 6 Dec
    3.0 %

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)
6 Dec 34.9 °C 32 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
7 Dec 34.1 °C 28 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
8 Dec 35.5 °C 20 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
9 Dec 35.2 °C 23 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
10 Dec 35.6 °C 24 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
11 Dec 36.2 °C 23 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
12 Dec 36.7 °C 19 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
13 Dec 34.5 °C 13 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
14 Dec 33.7 °C 15 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
15 Dec 34.5 °C 13 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
16 Dec 34.0 °C 15 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
17 Dec 36.4 °C 22 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
18 Dec 36.0 °C 21 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
19 Dec 36.9 °C 16 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
20 Dec 36.9 °C 22 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
21 Dec 37.4 °C 18 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
22 Dec 37.9 °C 17 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
23 Dec 37.5 °C 16 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
24 Dec 36.4 °C 16 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
25 Dec 36.6 °C 11 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
26 Dec 35.7 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
27 Dec 35.7 °C 16 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
28 Dec 35.6 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
29 Dec 35.8 °C 14 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
30 Dec 36.1 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
31 Dec 36.2 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
1 Jan 35.5 °C 14 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
2 Jan 36.6 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
3 Jan after 36.2 °C 12 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
4 Jan after 36.3 °C 11 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
5 Jan after 35.3 °C 11 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
6 Jan after 35.4 °C 12 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
7 Jan after 35.1 °C 11 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
8 Jan after 36.4 °C 12 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
9 Jan after 36.8 °C 13 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
10 Jan after 37.0 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
11 Jan after 37.1 °C 16 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
12 Jan after 36.5 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Nov 2023
After · 9 Jan 2024

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 19 December 2023 the air beside the fire reached 122 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 58: 3.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak122 µg/m³
Days over the guideline31 days
PM10175 µg/m³
Optical depth0.96
45678910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031123
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 · 1,247Every 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 Nagero fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 6 December 2023 to 2 January 2024 (28 days). The perimeter dates it from 6 December 2023 to 31 December 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 27,455 hectares (274.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Nagero (27,645 ha, 3.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.9 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, class Extreme.
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 · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 31 December 2023 → 2 January 2024.

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 6 December 2023 to 31 December 2023. 1,247 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.