Ulang fire, March 2025 Ulang, Nyirol
The fire started on 3 March 2025 in Ulang, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,668 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 216th largest in Upper Nile since 2016 (of 284 with a page). Number 236 in South Sudan in 2025, of 292.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Nyirol · 2022Ulang · 2023Ulang · 2016Nyirol · 2023
- Burnt area
- 5,668ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 14days
- 3 Mar 2025 – 16 Mar 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- counties
- Started on
- 3 Mar
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 242
- in a single hotspot: 136 MW
- Danger at start
- 56
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 281MW
- 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. Rain came after the fire: 2.8 mm on 21 Mar.
This area had burned before
100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,201 ha in 2016, 2,438 ha in 2017, 1,887 ha in 2018, 4,859 ha in 2019, 766 ha in 2020, 3,253 ha in 2021, 5,811 ha in 2022, 3,765 ha in 2023, 4,606 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,705 ha that had burned before.
- 4,787 ha Nyirol fire, March 2022 47,573 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,884 ha Ulang fire, March 2023 10,964 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,836 ha Ulang fire, January 2016 11,109 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 836 ha Nyirol fire, May 2023 7,002 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 617 ha Ulang fire, March 2021 13,943 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 332 ha Ulang fire, February 2024 14,721 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 163 ha Ulang fire, February 2017 5,531 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 12 ha Nyirol fire, February 2016 7,633 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Ulang where it started3,604 ha reached on 27 Feb0.7 %
-
2,102 ha reached on 5 Mar0.3 %
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 2025Inside 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 Mar | 40.0 °C | 13 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 4 Mar | 38.6 °C | 9 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 5 Mar | 40.8 °C | 10 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 6 Mar | 41.3 °C | 8 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 7 Mar | 39.6 °C | 8 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 77 |
| 8 Mar | 38.8 °C | 8 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 74 |
| 9 Mar | 38.7 °C | 7 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 74 |
| 10 Mar | 38.9 °C | 8 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 68 |
| 11 Mar | 39.1 °C | 10 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 66 |
| 12 Mar | 40.3 °C | 9 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 71 |
| 13 Mar | 40.0 °C | 13 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 14 Mar | 40.9 °C | 10 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 15 Mar | 41.8 °C | 7 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 69 |
| 16 Mar | 42.3 °C | 7 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 17 Mar after | 41.1 °C | 10 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 18 Mar after | 39.3 °C | 22 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 19 Mar after | 37.7 °C | 24 % | 33 km/h | 0.1 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 20 Mar after | 38.8 °C | 21 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 21 Mar after | 38.4 °C | 25 % | 36 km/h | 2.8 mm | High 33 |
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 4 March 2025 the air beside the fire reached 102 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 73: 4.9 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 · 242Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 47,573 haNyirolMarch 2022 · 30 days · 10 km away
- 77,472 haNyirol4 January 2024 · 28 days · 25 km away
- 29,157 haNyirol6 January 2026 · 15 days · 26 km away
- 32,732 haUlang16 February 2025 · 32 days · 30 km away
- 31,907 haUlang27 February 2022 · 37 days · 33 km away
- 63,860 haAkobo24 January 2022 · 30 days · 37 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Ulang fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 March 2025 and 16 March 2025: 14 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 5,668 hectares (56.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Ulang (3,604 ha, 0.7 %); Nyirol (2,102 ha, 0.3 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 42.3 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 77, class Very 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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 242 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.
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.