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SS · South Sudan · –

Raga fire, 27 November 2025 Raga

Out · last detection 19 Jan 2026, 11:24 UTC

The fire started on 27 November 2025 in Raga, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 53 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 74,473 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

This page is probably a fire complex, not a single fire. GWIS merges into one perimeter the fires that touch over weeks, which in large burning seasons can join dozens of separate fires. The total area is reliable; the origin and dates refer to the whole complex.

Other fire pages in the same area and on the same dates:

Number 13 in South Sudan in 2025, of 235.

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: Raga · 2016Raga · 2019Raga · 2020Raga · 2022

Burnt area
74,473ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
53days
27 Nov 2025 – 18 Jan 2026
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
27 Nov
2025
Heat detections
3,519
in a single hotspot: 111 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Average daily power
609MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Nov18 Jan
19 Jan 2026

How it evolved, day by day

27 Nov 2025 · 119 MW · 10 28 Nov 2025 · 64 MW · 15 29 Nov 2025 · 376 MW · 37 30 Nov 2025 · 271 MW · 28 1 Dec 2025 · 109 MW · 23 2 Dec 2025 · 268 MW · 33 3 Dec 2025 · 963 MW · 80 4 Dec 2025 · 37 MW · 11 5 Dec 2025 · 265 MW · 28 6 Dec 2025 · 309 MW · 41 7 Dec 2025 · 790 MW · 68 8 Dec 2025 · 24 MW · 10 9 Dec 2025 · 497 MW · 44 10 Dec 2025 · 501 MW · 57 11 Dec 2025 · 1,030 MW · 111 12 Dec 2025 · 1,165 MW · 177 13 Dec 2025 · 2,022 MW · 217 14 Dec 2025 · 783 MW · 127 15 Dec 2025 · 1,661 MW · 149 16 Dec 2025 · 1,641 MW · 158 17 Dec 2025 · 1,497 MW · 175 18 Dec 2025 · 761 MW · 77 19 Dec 2025 · 818 MW · 118 20 Dec 2025 · 832 MW · 69 21 Dec 2025 · 2,548 MW · 181 22 Dec 2025 · 1,257 MW · 124 23 Dec 2025 · 783 MW · 95 24 Dec 2025 · 289 MW · 59 25 Dec 2025 · 718 MW · 75 26 Dec 2025 · 919 MW · 101 27 Dec 2025 · 525 MW · 64 29 Dec 2025 · 1,235 MW · 133 30 Dec 2025 · 1,035 MW · 92 31 Dec 2025 · 15 MW · 4 1 Jan 2026 · 661 MW · 73 2 Jan 2026 · 1,137 MW · 133 3 Jan 2026 · 545 MW · 90 4 Jan 2026 · 780 MW · 219 5 Jan 2026 · 160 MW · 39 6 Jan 2026 · 441 MW · 35 7 Jan 2026 · 418 MW · 33 8 Jan 2026 · 600 MW · 61 9 Jan 2026 · 63 MW · 14 12 Jan 2026 · 13 MW · 3 13 Jan 2026 · 36 MW · 9 14 Jan 2026 · 3 MW · 3 15 Jan 2026 · 10 MW · 3 16 Jan 2026 · 1 MW · 1 17 Jan 2026 · 11 MW · 5 18 Jan 2026 · 24 MW · 5 19 Jan 2026 · 11 MW · 2
27 Nov 8 Dec 21 Dec 31 Dec 13 Jan

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 (99 passes) and with what wind. Watch the film

The weather it burned in

36°high
41km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone 21 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: 47,876 ha in 2016, 17,045 ha in 2017, 6,540 ha in 2018, 29,788 ha in 2019, 26,567 ha in 2020, 19,448 ha in 2021, 27,334 ha in 2022, 12,899 ha in 2023, 24,978 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 72,659 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 47% of the area of London (745 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. Raga where it started
    75,250 ha reached on 27 Nov
    1.2 %

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)
27 Nov 33.9 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
28 Nov 34.6 °C 20 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
29 Nov 33.9 °C 21 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
30 Nov 34.2 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
1 Dec 34.5 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
2 Dec 33.9 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
3 Dec 33.9 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
4 Dec 34.2 °C 19 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
5 Dec 34.6 °C 21 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
6 Dec 33.9 °C 24 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
7 Dec 35.6 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
8 Dec 35.1 °C 23 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
9 Dec 32.6 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
10 Dec 32.3 °C 20 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
11 Dec 32.6 °C 20 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
12 Dec 33.2 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
13 Dec 32.7 °C 18 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
14 Dec 32.3 °C 18 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
15 Dec 32.0 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
16 Dec 30.2 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
17 Dec 31.2 °C 18 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
18 Dec 31.5 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
19 Dec 32.0 °C 17 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
20 Dec 32.9 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
21 Dec 33.6 °C 14 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
22 Dec 33.5 °C 14 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
23 Dec 32.2 °C 19 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
24 Dec 34.5 °C 16 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
25 Dec 35.1 °C 16 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
26 Dec 34.7 °C 16 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
27 Dec 35.2 °C 15 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
28 Dec 33.3 °C 12 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
29 Dec 33.2 °C 11 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
30 Dec 33.0 °C 13 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
31 Dec 31.2 °C 12 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
1 Jan 33.5 °C 10 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
2 Jan 35.1 °C 13 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
3 Jan 34.9 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
4 Jan 34.5 °C 13 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
5 Jan 34.6 °C 16 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
6 Jan 34.3 °C 15 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
7 Jan 34.4 °C 15 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
8 Jan 35.5 °C 16 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
9 Jan 35.2 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
10 Jan 33.4 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
11 Jan 33.9 °C 16 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
12 Jan 34.7 °C 16 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
13 Jan 33.8 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
14 Jan 32.8 °C 18 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
15 Jan 32.5 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
16 Jan 32.2 °C 16 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
17 Jan 34.7 °C 13 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
18 Jan 34.9 °C 14 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
19 Jan after 35.4 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
20 Jan after 35.4 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
21 Jan after 35.8 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
22 Jan after 36.9 °C 17 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
23 Jan after 36.1 °C 18 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
24 Jan after 37.3 °C 16 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
25 Jan after 37.2 °C 11 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
26 Jan after 37.4 °C 11 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
27 Jan after 36.4 °C 13 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
28 Jan after 34.8 °C 13 % 37 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 · 20 Nov 2025
After · 25 Jan 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 18 December 2025 the air beside the fire reached 104 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 59: 3.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak104 µg/m³
Days over the guideline48 days
PM10158 µg/m³
Optical depth0.79
26 Nov7 Dec18 Dec29 Dec9 Jan
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 · 3,519Every 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 Raga fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 27 November 2025 to 18 January 2026 (53 days). The perimeter dates it from 28 November 2025 to 14 January 2026.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 74,473 hectares (744.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Raga (75,250 ha, 1.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.6 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, 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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 14 January 2026 → 18 January 2026.
  2. Start date: 28 November 2025 → 27 November 2025.

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.

Report an error
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How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 6 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 28 November 2025 to 14 January 2026. 3,519 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.