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SS · South Sudan · –

Panyikang fire, October 2026 Baliet, Panyikang

Burning · last detection 12 Nov 2026, 11:25 UTC

The fire started on 28 October 2026 in Panyikang, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 11,237 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

Number 47 in South Sudan in 2026, of 228.

GWIS near-real-time perimeter, from the layer that changed in August 2025: this fire is not compared with fires from earlier years, because since then the GWIS layer gives more and larger perimeters.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Panyikang · 2024Panyikang · 2025Panyikang · 2016Panyikang · 2023

Is it still active?

Satellites detected fire on 12 Nov 2026, 11:25 UTC. Everything suggests it is still burning. Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.

Wind, humidity and rain for the next 72 h

Burnt area
11,237ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
16days
28 Oct 2026 – 12 Nov 2026
Municipalities hit
2
counties
Started on
28 Oct
2026
Heat detections
281
in a single hotspot: 198 MW
Danger at start
36
High · FWI index
Average daily power
220MW
detected power per day, on average

The next 72 hours

The wind is blowing from the south and pushing northwards; no sharp shifts are expected until Sun 15, 17:00.

ECMWF IFS 0.25° at the centre of the fire · computed 12 Nov 2026, 15:55 UTC

Fri 13, 20:00 – Sat 14, 07:00, local time

No overnight recovery: humidity stays at or below 27 %

Nights usually moisten the vegetation and the fire calms down. Tonight humidity does not reach 55 %, so it may stay active in the small hours.

Sat 14, 20:00 – Sun 15, 07:00, local time

No overnight recovery: humidity stays at or below 46 %

Nights usually moisten the vegetation and the fire calms down. Tonight humidity does not reach 55 %, so it may stay active in the small hours.

Checked, no warning: no wind shifts of more than 60° no useful rain expected (0.6 mm in 72 h)

Hour by hour, local time

Tap the strip to see each hour

Mean wind Gusts where it blows to Relative humidity Night (8 pm to 8 am) Rain (mm) · chance in %

Where is it blowing? The next 48 h

geoBoundaries/South Sudan Information Management Working Group (IMWG), National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), and OCHA, OCHA South Sudan (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY 3.0 IGO))

At this hour

Places the fan reaches

    Is it heading my way?

    We compare your point with the fan for each hour. Your location never leaves your device.

    or tap the map

    This is not an official warning. It is a global model forecast with cells of about 25 km, at the centre of the fire: it cannot see valley winds or the winds the fire itself creates. The fan shows where the wind blows, not where the fire will spread. If in doubt, follow what the authorities say.

    Forecast: ECMWF IFS 0.25° (European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts), served by our own Open-Meteo instance; the chance of rain comes from the ECMWF ensemble. Variables: wind and gusts at 10 m, wind at 850 hPa, relative humidity and temperature at 2 m, rain. Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0).

    Fire: GWIS / Copernicus (reconstructed from VIIRS) (CC BY 4.0); hotspots from the last 24 h: VIIRS from NASA FIRMS. Boundaries: geoBoundaries/South Sudan Information Management Working Group (IMWG), National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), and OCHA, OCHA South Sudan (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY 3.0 IGO)).

    How it is worked out: wind shift = a change of more than 60° in 6 h or less, with at least 15 km/h before and after; no overnight recovery = peak humidity between 8 pm and 8 am stays below 55 %; useful rain = 2 mm or more in 6 h. The fan opens 18° plus however much the wind varies within ±3 h and reaches 25 km beyond the edge of the fire: one model cell, not a rate of spread. Methodology

    Where it burned

    HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Oct12 Nov
    12 Nov 2026

    How it evolved, day by day

    28 Oct 2026 · 114 MW · 9 29 Oct 2026 · 731 MW · 54 30 Oct 2026 · 123 MW · 10 31 Oct 2026 · 461 MW · 29 1 Nov 2026 · 37 MW · 5 2 Nov 2026 · 124 MW · 18 3 Nov 2026 · 78 MW · 11 4 Nov 2026 · 287 MW · 23 5 Nov 2026 · 405 MW · 24 6 Nov 2026 · 167 MW · 19 7 Nov 2026 · 594 MW · 45 9 Nov 2026 · 66 MW · 17 10 Nov 2026 · 6 MW · 1 11 Nov 2026 · 93 MW · 15 12 Nov 2026 · 10 MW · 1
    29 Oct 3 Nov 6 Nov 10 Nov

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

    Fire front film How it spread from one satellite pass to the next (45 passes) and with what wind. Watch the film

    The weather it burned in

    41°high
    47km/h · peak gust
    11%lowest humidity

    It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

    This area had burned before

    45% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,945 ha in 2016, 1,276 ha in 2017, 807 ha in 2018, 305 ha in 2019, 87 ha in 2020, 1,056 ha in 2023, 4,895 ha in 2024, 3,666 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,039 ha that had burned before.

    How big is it?

    10 km
    It burned the equivalent of 7.1% of the area of London (112 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. Baliet
      8,254 ha reached on 29 Oct
      0.7 %
    2. Panyikang where it started
      3,049 ha reached on 28 Oct
      0.6 %

    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) · forecast models, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives

    Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
    28 Oct 38.5 °C 23 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
    29 Oct 41.0 °C 11 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
    30 Oct 38.0 °C 24 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
    31 Oct 39.3 °C 25 % 25 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 40
    1 Nov 36.8 °C 29 % 26 km/h 0.5 mm Very high 43
    2 Nov 39.7 °C 22 % 23 km/h 0.2 mm High 36
    3 Nov 40.1 °C 19 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
    4 Nov 38.9 °C 23 % 27 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 54
    5 Nov 39.7 °C 21 % 20 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 46
    6 Nov 39.5 °C 23 % 23 km/h 1.3 mm High 36
    7 Nov 39.7 °C 13 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
    8 Nov 38.6 °C 13 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
    9 Nov 37.8 °C 11 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 78
    10 Nov 37.8 °C 11 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 88
    11 Nov 36.1 °C 11 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72

    Before and after, from space

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

    Before · 21 Oct 2026
    After · 11 Nov 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 30 October 2026 the air beside the fire reached 54 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 36: 2.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

    PM2.5 peak54 µg/m³
    Days over the guideline9 days
    PM1097 µg/m³
    Optical depth0.80
    26 Oct28 Oct30 Oct1 Nov3 Nov
    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 · 281Every 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 Panyikang fire last?
    According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 28 October 2026 to 12 November 2026 (16 days). The perimeter dates it from 28 October 2026 to 10 November 2026.
    How much area did it burn?
    The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 11,237 hectares (112.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
    Which municipalities burned?
    The fire entered 2 municipalities: Baliet (8,254 ha, 0.7 %); Panyikang (3,049 ha, 0.6 %).
    Is the Panyikang fire still active?
    Yes: satellites detected fire on 12 Nov 2026, 11:25 UTC. Check the emergency service for the official status.
    What was the weather like?
    During the fire the temperature reached 41.0 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 88, class Very extreme.
    What weather is expected at the fire over the next 72 hours?
    The wind is blowing from the south and pushing northwards; no sharp shifts are expected until Sun 15, 17:00. No overnight recovery: humidity stays at or below 27 % (Fri 13, 20:00 – Sat 14, 07:00). No overnight recovery: humidity stays at or below 46 % (Sat 14, 20:00 – Sun 15, 07:00). Times are local time at the fire. ECMWF IFS forecast (Open-Meteo) computed 12 Nov 2026, 15:55 UTC; this is not an official warning.
    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 · 6 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 4 November 2026.
    1. Area: 10,985 → 11,237 ha.
    2. Area: 8,034 → 10,985 ha.
    3. Area: 7,352 → 8,034 ha.
    4. Area: 5,618 → 7,352 ha.
    5. Area: 5,256 → 5,618 ha.
    6. Page published (5,256 ha).

    RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

    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.
    • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 28 October 2026 to 10 November 2026. 281 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
    • We have not matched this page with any official record.
    • Weather: ECMWF IFS model, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives.
    • 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.