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Pariang fire, December 2025 Pariang

Out · last detection 15 Dec 2025, 10:40 UTC

The fire started on 4 December 2025 in Pariang, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,448 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 47th largest in Unity since 2016 (of 85 with a page). Number 194 in South Sudan in 2025, of 292.

Burnt area
6,448ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
4 Dec 2025 – 15 Dec 2025
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
4 Dec
2025
Heat detections
139
in a single hotspot: 126 MW
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

15 Dec 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Dec15 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

56910111215

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
38km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone 29 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

98% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,230 ha in 2016, 4,111 ha in 2017, 2,273 ha in 2019, 1 ha in 2020, 1,878 ha in 2021, 762 ha in 2022, 1,285 ha in 2023, 1,925 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,293 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Pariang where it started
    6,488 ha reached on 1 Dec
    0.7 %

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)
4 Dec 36.0 °C 19 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
5 Dec 37.0 °C 17 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
6 Dec 36.4 °C 19 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
7 Dec 36.0 °C 22 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
8 Dec 37.0 °C 18 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
9 Dec 36.2 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
10 Dec 35.0 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
11 Dec 34.3 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
12 Dec 35.0 °C 15 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
13 Dec 35.0 °C 16 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
14 Dec 34.9 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
15 Dec 34.1 °C 15 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
16 Dec after 32.9 °C 13 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
17 Dec after 33.3 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
18 Dec after 32.8 °C 12 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
19 Dec after 34.8 °C 15 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
20 Dec after 34.1 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
21 Dec after 34.4 °C 15 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
22 Dec after 34.6 °C 14 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
23 Dec after 35.3 °C 15 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
24 Dec after 36.2 °C 17 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
25 Dec after 37.1 °C 16 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 27 Nov 2025
After · 22 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 3 December 2025 the air beside the fire reached 60 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 41: 2.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak60 µg/m³
Days over the guideline16 days
PM10135 µg/m³
Optical depth0.62
23456789101112131415161718
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 · 139Every 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 Pariang fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 December 2025 and 15 December 2025: 12 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 6,448 hectares (64.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Pariang (6,488 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.0 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, 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

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.