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Raga fire, 3 November 2025 Raga

Out · last detection 27 Nov 2025, 23:53 UTC

The fire started on 3 November 2025 in Raga, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 25 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 17,134 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 77th largest in Western Bahr el Ghazal since 2016 (of 431 with a page). Number 59 in South Sudan in 2025, of 292.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Raga · 2019

Burnt area
17,134ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
25days
3 Nov 2025 – 27 Nov 2025
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
3 Nov
2025
Heat detections
389
in a single hotspot: 103 MW
Danger at start
36
High · FWI index
Average daily power
120MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Nov27 Nov
27 Nov 2025

How it evolved, day by day

4 Nov 2025 · 2 MW · 1 5 Nov 2025 · 8 MW · 3 7 Nov 2025 · 15 MW · 2 9 Nov 2025 · 9 MW · 3 10 Nov 2025 · 564 MW · 50 11 Nov 2025 · 147 MW · 10 12 Nov 2025 · 10 MW · 7 13 Nov 2025 · 232 MW · 27 14 Nov 2025 · 233 MW · 38 15 Nov 2025 · 914 MW · 134 16 Nov 2025 · 99 MW · 53 17 Nov 2025 · 5 MW · 6 18 Nov 2025 · 36 MW · 5 19 Nov 2025 · 30 MW · 7 20 Nov 2025 · 42 MW · 6 21 Nov 2025 · 4 MW · 2 22 Nov 2025 · 27 MW · 6 23 Nov 2025 · 20 MW · 3 24 Nov 2025 · 9 MW · 1 25 Nov 2025 · 56 MW · 8 26 Nov 2025 · 171 MW · 12 27 Nov 2025 · 16 MW · 5
4 Nov 10 Nov 14 Nov 15 Nov 18 Nov 22 Nov 26 Nov

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
42km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

67% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,173 ha in 2016, 1,069 ha in 2017, 1,417 ha in 2018, 8,694 ha in 2019, 1,293 ha in 2020, 3,022 ha in 2021, 867 ha in 2023, 1,505 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 11,485 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 11% of the area of London (171 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
    17,287 ha reached on 4 Nov
    0.3 %

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)
3 Nov 36.2 °C 24 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
4 Nov 35.5 °C 23 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
5 Nov 36.7 °C 20 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
6 Nov 35.6 °C 14 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
7 Nov 36.7 °C 12 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
8 Nov 36.8 °C 11 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
9 Nov 36.3 °C 12 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
10 Nov 36.2 °C 11 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
11 Nov 36.6 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
12 Nov 36.3 °C 19 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 Nov 37.0 °C 15 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
14 Nov 35.8 °C 14 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
15 Nov 33.5 °C 12 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
16 Nov 33.6 °C 13 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
17 Nov 34.1 °C 14 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
18 Nov 35.4 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
19 Nov 36.3 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
20 Nov 36.0 °C 14 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
21 Nov 35.9 °C 10 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
22 Nov 36.3 °C 9 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
23 Nov 37.2 °C 15 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
24 Nov 36.8 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
25 Nov 36.6 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
26 Nov 36.3 °C 14 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
27 Nov 36.1 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
28 Nov after 35.1 °C 13 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
29 Nov after 36.2 °C 15 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
30 Nov after 36.4 °C 18 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
1 Dec after 36.2 °C 19 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
2 Dec after 35.6 °C 18 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
3 Dec after 35.5 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
4 Dec after 36.2 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
5 Dec after 36.4 °C 15 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
6 Dec after 37.2 °C 15 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
7 Dec after 36.7 °C 17 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 27 Oct 2025
After · 4 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 11 November 2025 the air beside the fire reached 73 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 43: 2.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak73 µg/m³
Days over the guideline11 days
PM10107 µg/m³
Optical depth0.85
89101112131415161718192021222324
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 · 389Every 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

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Raga fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 3 November 2025 to 27 November 2025 (25 days). The perimeter dates it from 10 November 2025 to 21 November 2025.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 17,134 hectares (171.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Raga (17,287 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.2 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 57, 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: 21 November 2025 → 27 November 2025.
  2. Start date: 10 November 2025 → 3 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.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 10 November 2025 to 21 November 2025. 389 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.