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Raga fire, 10 December 2025 Raga

Out · last detection 3 Jan 2026, 11:24 UTC

The fire started on 10 December 2025 in Raga, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 25 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,664 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 160th largest in Western Bahr el Ghazal since 2016 (of 431 with a page). Number 120 in South Sudan in 2025, of 292.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Raga · 2025Raga · 2020Raga · 2025

Burnt area
9,664ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
25days
10 Dec 2025 – 3 Jan 2026
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
10 Dec
2025
Heat detections
287
in a single hotspot: 90 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
127MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Dec3 Jan
3 Jan 2026

How it evolved, day by day

10 Dec 2025 · 31 MW · 5 11 Dec 2025 · 68 MW · 10 12 Dec 2025 · 272 MW · 30 13 Dec 2025 · 348 MW · 55 14 Dec 2025 · 201 MW · 36 15 Dec 2025 · 14 MW · 4 17 Dec 2025 · 38 MW · 7 19 Dec 2025 · 43 MW · 10 20 Dec 2025 · 299 MW · 15 21 Dec 2025 · 152 MW · 15 22 Dec 2025 · 367 MW · 27 23 Dec 2025 · 23 MW · 2 24 Dec 2025 · 9 MW · 2 25 Dec 2025 · 654 MW · 30 26 Dec 2025 · 80 MW · 11 27 Dec 2025 · 55 MW · 6 29 Dec 2025 · 91 MW · 11 30 Dec 2025 · 5 MW · 1 31 Dec 2025 · 29 MW · 5 1 Jan 2026 · 5 MW · 1 2 Jan 2026 · 4 MW · 2 3 Jan 2026 · 10 MW · 2
10 Dec 14 Dec 20 Dec 24 Dec 25 Dec 29 Dec 2 Jan

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
40km/h · peak gust
8%lowest humidity

It had gone 34 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

64% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 479 ha in 2016, 238 ha in 2017, 2,084 ha in 2019, 3,843 ha in 2020, 2,629 ha in 2021, 1,644 ha in 2023, 2,235 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,175 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 6.1% of the area of London (97 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
    9,724 ha reached on 10 Dec
    0.2 %

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)
10 Dec 32.5 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
11 Dec 32.2 °C 19 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
12 Dec 33.1 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
13 Dec 33.0 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
14 Dec 32.0 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
15 Dec 30.8 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
16 Dec 29.8 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
17 Dec 30.3 °C 19 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
18 Dec 30.9 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
19 Dec 31.4 °C 17 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
20 Dec 32.6 °C 16 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
21 Dec 33.5 °C 13 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
22 Dec 33.7 °C 12 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
23 Dec 32.9 °C 13 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
24 Dec 33.4 °C 13 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
25 Dec 35.5 °C 12 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
26 Dec 34.9 °C 14 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
27 Dec 35.0 °C 14 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
28 Dec 33.6 °C 10 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
29 Dec 33.1 °C 10 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
30 Dec 33.2 °C 11 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
31 Dec 32.2 °C 11 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
1 Jan 33.4 °C 8 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
2 Jan 35.1 °C 10 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
3 Jan 34.7 °C 12 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
4 Jan after 34.3 °C 13 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
5 Jan after 34.0 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
6 Jan after 33.7 °C 13 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
7 Jan after 33.7 °C 13 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
8 Jan after 35.0 °C 15 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
9 Jan after 34.6 °C 17 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
10 Jan after 32.9 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
11 Jan after 33.2 °C 16 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
12 Jan after 34.1 °C 15 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
13 Jan after 33.1 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Dec 2025
After · 10 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 14 December 2025 the air beside the fire reached 51 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 38: 2.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak51 µg/m³
Days over the guideline20 days
PM10148 µg/m³
Optical depth0.47
9101112131415161718192021222324252627282930
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 · 287Every 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 10 December 2025 to 3 January 2026 (25 days). The perimeter dates it from 11 December 2025 to 27 December 2025.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 9,664 hectares (96.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Raga (9,724 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.5 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, 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: 27 December 2025 → 3 January 2026.
  2. Start date: 11 December 2025 → 10 December 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 11 December 2025 to 27 December 2025. 287 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.