Raga fire, 12 January 2026 Raga
The fire started on 12 January 2026 in Raga, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,165 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 170th largest in Western Bahr el Ghazal since 2016 (of 424 with a page). Number 55 in South Sudan in 2026, of 183.
- Burnt area
- 9,165ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 12days
- 12 Jan 2026 – 23 Jan 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- counties
- Started on
- 12 Jan
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 230
- in a single hotspot: 61 MW
- Danger at start
- 47
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 118MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 6,880 ha in 2016, 699 ha in 2017, 3,579 ha in 2018, 4,781 ha in 2019, 3,144 ha in 2020, 4,087 ha in 2021, 429 ha in 2022, 5,396 ha in 2023, 4,060 ha in 2024, 4,293 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 9,142 ha that had burned before.
- 4,553 ha Raga fire, December 2019 77,377 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,435 ha Raga fire, December 2016 163,967 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,061 ha Raga fire, December 2021 9,623 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 984 ha Raga fire, December 2016 52,041 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 393 ha Raga fire, February 2024 5,337 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 169 ha Raga fire, December 2019 27,769 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 58 ha Djema fire, December 2025 623,165 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 17 ha Raga fire, December 2022 15,449 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Raga where it started9,193 ha reached on 12 Jan0.2 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12 Jan | 34.1 °C | 17 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 13 Jan | 33.6 °C | 17 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 14 Jan | 32.4 °C | 18 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 15 Jan | 32.4 °C | 18 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 16 Jan | 32.2 °C | 16 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 17 Jan | 34.5 °C | 13 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 18 Jan | 34.4 °C | 14 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 19 Jan | 34.8 °C | 14 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 20 Jan | 34.9 °C | 15 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 21 Jan | 35.6 °C | 17 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 22 Jan | 35.9 °C | 19 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 23 Jan | 34.7 °C | 21 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 24 Jan after | 36.1 °C | 19 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 25 Jan after | 36.5 °C | 12 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 26 Jan after | 36.7 °C | 12 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 27 Jan after | 36.1 °C | 13 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 28 Jan after | 34.4 °C | 14 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 29 Jan after | 34.3 °C | 13 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 30 Jan after | 35.3 °C | 13 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 31 Jan after | 35.7 °C | 14 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 1 Feb after | 33.5 °C | 17 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 2 Feb after | 34.6 °C | 14 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 22 January 2026 the air beside the fire reached 76 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 44: 3.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 230Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Raga fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 12 January 2026 and 23 January 2026: 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 9,165 hectares (91.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Raga (9,193 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.9 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, 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.
Report an error
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.