Ulang fire, 20 February 2026 Ulang
The fire started on 20 February 2026 in Ulang, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 32 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 11,509 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 67th largest in Upper Nile since 2016 (of 286 with a page). Number 39 in South Sudan in 2026, of 199.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Ulang · 2022Ulang · 2024Ulang · 2021Ulang · 2025
- Burnt area
- 11,509ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 32days
- 20 Feb 2026 – 23 Mar 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- counties
- Started on
- 20 Feb
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 357
- in a single hotspot: 88 MW
- Danger at start
- 50
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 195MW
- 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: 10.8 mm on 24 Mar.
This area had burned before
76% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,030 ha in 2016, 1,246 ha in 2017, 1,426 ha in 2018, 62 ha in 2019, 387 ha in 2020, 4,548 ha in 2021, 5,881 ha in 2022, 4,518 ha in 2023, 5,911 ha in 2024, 6,463 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 8,772 ha that had burned before.
- 5,575 ha Ulang fire, February 2022 31,907 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,628 ha Ulang fire, March 2024 6,954 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 423 ha Ulang fire, March 2021 6,517 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 started11,587 ha reached on 20 Feb2.4 %
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 were about 2.1 hectares of built-up land and about 2,900 residents (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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20 Feb | 38.1 °C | 18 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 21 Feb | 38.8 °C | 13 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 22 Feb | 38.1 °C | 11 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 23 Feb | 37.2 °C | 11 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 24 Feb | 35.7 °C | 13 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 66 |
| 25 Feb | 35.8 °C | 14 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 26 Feb | 36.8 °C | 16 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 27 Feb | 37.1 °C | 14 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 28 Feb | 36.1 °C | 11 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 1 Mar | 37.5 °C | 10 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 2 Mar | 36.0 °C | 9 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 3 Mar | 35.4 °C | 9 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 70 |
| 4 Mar | 35.5 °C | 8 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 71 |
| 5 Mar | 36.0 °C | 9 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 6 Mar | 36.8 °C | 10 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 7 Mar | 37.7 °C | 10 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 8 Mar | 39.0 °C | 9 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 9 Mar | 39.2 °C | 8 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 68 |
| 10 Mar | 38.0 °C | 9 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 11 Mar | 38.5 °C | 10 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 12 Mar | 41.2 °C | 9 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 13 Mar | 40.0 °C | 7 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 14 Mar | 40.3 °C | 17 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 15 Mar | 39.3 °C | 21 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 16 Mar | 37.5 °C | 23 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 17 Mar | 35.9 °C | 27 % | 42 km/h | 0.5 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 18 Mar | 33.6 °C | 38 % | 35 km/h | 0.6 mm | High 37 |
| 19 Mar | 36.7 °C | 32 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 20 Mar | 37.4 °C | 26 % | 24 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 36 |
| 21 Mar | 31.1 °C | 41 % | 39 km/h | 1.2 mm | High 27 |
| 22 Mar | 35.0 °C | 34 % | 24 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 32 |
| 23 Mar | 37.1 °C | 32 % | 27 km/h | 0.9 mm | High 34 |
| 24 Mar after | 36.3 °C | 33 % | 38 km/h | 10.8 mm | Moderate 14 |
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 7 March 2026 the air beside the fire reached 73 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 44: 2.9 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 · 357Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 31,907 haUlang27 February 2022 · 37 days · 7 km away
- 32,732 haUlang9 February 2025 · 46 days · 23 km away
- 47,573 haUlang5 March 2022 · 30 days · 32 km away
- 29,817 haLuakpiny/NasirJanuary 2016 · 43 days · 36 km away
- 77,472 haNyirol4 January 2024 · 28 days · 38 km away
- 63,860 haAkobo24 January 2022 · 37 days · 39 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Ulang fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 20 February 2026 to 23 March 2026 (32 days). The perimeter dates it from 24 February 2026 to 17 March 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 11,509 hectares (115.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Ulang (11,587 ha, 2.4 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 41.2 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 71, 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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 17 March 2026 → 23 March 2026.
- Start date: 24 February 2026 → 20 February 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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 24 February 2026 to 17 March 2026. 357 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.