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SS · South Sudan · →

Raga fire, 6 November 2025 Wau, Raga

Out · last detection 30 Dec 2025, 23:36 UTC

The fire started on 6 November 2025 in Raga, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 54 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 111,585 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

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:

It is the 6th largest in Western Bahr el Ghazal since 2016 (of 441 with a page). Number 7 in South Sudan in 2025, of 292.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Wau · 2016Wau · 2020Wau · 2019Raga · 2021

Burnt area
111,585ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
54days
6 Nov 2025 – 29 Dec 2025
Municipalities hit
2
counties
Started on
6 Nov
2025
Heat detections
4,198
in a single hotspot: 161 MW
Danger at start
12
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
820MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Nov29 Dec
30 Dec 2025

How it evolved, day by day

6 Nov 2025 · 10 MW · 2 8 Nov 2025 · 14 MW · 3 10 Nov 2025 · 44 MW · 11 11 Nov 2025 · 123 MW · 22 14 Nov 2025 · 294 MW · 33 15 Nov 2025 · 156 MW · 28 16 Nov 2025 · 596 MW · 80 17 Nov 2025 · 298 MW · 44 18 Nov 2025 · 814 MW · 80 19 Nov 2025 · 629 MW · 60 20 Nov 2025 · 1,493 MW · 130 21 Nov 2025 · 876 MW · 102 22 Nov 2025 · 978 MW · 112 23 Nov 2025 · 455 MW · 15 24 Nov 2025 · 278 MW · 35 25 Nov 2025 · 711 MW · 59 26 Nov 2025 · 752 MW · 112 27 Nov 2025 · 1,214 MW · 120 28 Nov 2025 · 652 MW · 75 29 Nov 2025 · 744 MW · 67 30 Nov 2025 · 2,293 MW · 150 1 Dec 2025 · 2,674 MW · 157 2 Dec 2025 · 1,238 MW · 107 3 Dec 2025 · 304 MW · 74 4 Dec 2025 · 1,073 MW · 78 5 Dec 2025 · 980 MW · 74 6 Dec 2025 · 582 MW · 50 7 Dec 2025 · 519 MW · 58 8 Dec 2025 · 181 MW · 22 9 Dec 2025 · 721 MW · 50 10 Dec 2025 · 184 MW · 37 11 Dec 2025 · 2,772 MW · 199 12 Dec 2025 · 2,070 MW · 229 13 Dec 2025 · 2,938 MW · 324 14 Dec 2025 · 2,229 MW · 206 15 Dec 2025 · 1,676 MW · 159 16 Dec 2025 · 1,185 MW · 156 17 Dec 2025 · 1,002 MW · 144 18 Dec 2025 · 699 MW · 106 19 Dec 2025 · 851 MW · 111 20 Dec 2025 · 881 MW · 70 21 Dec 2025 · 971 MW · 105 22 Dec 2025 · 596 MW · 95 23 Dec 2025 · 529 MW · 89 24 Dec 2025 · 634 MW · 74 25 Dec 2025 · 92 MW · 19 26 Dec 2025 · 29 MW · 10 27 Dec 2025 · 38 MW · 10 28 Dec 2025 · 6 MW · 2 29 Dec 2025 · 737 MW · 41 30 Dec 2025 · 2 MW · 2
6 Nov 18 Nov 26 Nov 4 Dec 12 Dec 13 Dec 20 Dec 28 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

36°high
37km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

95% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 73,411 ha in 2016, 40,791 ha in 2017, 697 ha in 2018, 34,474 ha in 2019, 42,041 ha in 2020, 45,224 ha in 2021, 23,494 ha in 2022, 15,846 ha in 2023, 44,388 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 106,052 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

20 km
It burned the equivalent of 70% of the area of London (1,116 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. Wau
    81,388 ha reached on 10 Nov
    4.2 %
  2. Raga where it started
    30,841 ha reached on 6 Nov
    0.5 %

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 Nov 32.1 °C 38 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
7 Nov 32.2 °C 35 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
8 Nov 32.5 °C 27 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
9 Nov 32.3 °C 25 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
10 Nov 33.2 °C 29 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
11 Nov 33.2 °C 30 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
12 Nov 33.8 °C 28 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
13 Nov 33.8 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.1 mm High 24
14 Nov 32.6 °C 27 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
15 Nov 31.8 °C 22 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
16 Nov 31.5 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
17 Nov 32.3 °C 26 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
18 Nov 33.2 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
19 Nov 34.1 °C 27 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
20 Nov 34.0 °C 23 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
21 Nov 34.0 °C 24 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
22 Nov 34.6 °C 23 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
23 Nov 34.4 °C 24 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
24 Nov 35.1 °C 21 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
25 Nov 35.1 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
26 Nov 34.7 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
27 Nov 34.4 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
28 Nov 35.2 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
29 Nov 34.2 °C 22 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
30 Nov 34.7 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
1 Dec 34.9 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
2 Dec 34.4 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
3 Dec 34.3 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
4 Dec 34.7 °C 19 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
5 Dec 35.0 °C 21 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
6 Dec 34.4 °C 24 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
7 Dec 35.9 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
8 Dec 35.5 °C 23 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
9 Dec 32.9 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
10 Dec 32.7 °C 20 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
11 Dec 33.0 °C 20 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
12 Dec 33.6 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
13 Dec 33.0 °C 19 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
14 Dec 32.7 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
15 Dec 32.4 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
16 Dec 30.7 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
17 Dec 31.6 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
18 Dec 31.8 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
19 Dec 32.4 °C 17 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
20 Dec 33.2 °C 18 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
21 Dec 33.9 °C 15 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
22 Dec 33.8 °C 14 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
23 Dec 32.4 °C 20 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
24 Dec 34.9 °C 17 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
25 Dec 35.4 °C 16 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
26 Dec 35.0 °C 17 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
27 Dec 35.7 °C 16 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
28 Dec 33.6 °C 12 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
29 Dec 33.5 °C 12 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
30 Dec after 33.4 °C 14 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
31 Dec after 31.6 °C 12 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
1 Jan after 33.9 °C 10 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
2 Jan after 35.4 °C 13 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
3 Jan after 35.1 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
4 Jan after 34.8 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
5 Jan after 34.9 °C 16 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
6 Jan after 34.6 °C 16 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
7 Jan after 34.7 °C 16 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
8 Jan after 35.9 °C 16 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 30 Oct 2025
After · 5 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 1 December 2025 the air beside the fire reached 109 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 59: 4.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak109 µg/m³
Days over the guideline47 days
PM10127 µg/m³
Optical depth0.83
910111213141516171819202122232425262728293012345678910111213141516171819202122232425
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 · 4,198Every 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 6 November 2025 to 29 December 2025 (54 days). The perimeter dates it from 11 November 2025 to 22 December 2025.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 111,585 hectares (1,115.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Wau (81,388 ha, 4.2 %); Raga (30,841 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.9 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, class Very high.
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: 22 December 2025 → 29 December 2025.
  2. Start date: 11 November 2025 → 6 November 2025.

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; 11 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 11 November 2025 to 22 December 2025. 4,198 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.