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Um Baru fire, 24 January 2026 Um Baru

Out · last measured on 25 Jan 2026

The fire started on 24 January 2026 in Um Baru, Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,579 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 78th largest in North Darfur since 2016 (of 140 with a page). Number 196 in Sudan in 2026, of 310.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Um Baru · 2024Um Baru · 2024Um Baru · 2025Um Baru · 2025

We have the GWIS perimeter for this fire, but not yet its hotspots: NASA publishes the yearly hotspot archive only once the year closes. The page picks them up automatically when they are available.

Burnt area
2,579ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
2days
24 Jan 2026 – 25 Jan 2026
Municipalities hit
1
localities
Started on
24 Jan
2026
Danger at start
62
Extreme · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

34°high
33km/h · peak gust
8%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

70% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,731 ha in 2024, 107 ha in 2025.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 1.6% of the area of London (26 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. Um Baru where it started
    2,584 ha
    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)
24 Jan 34.5 °C 8 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
25 Jan 34.4 °C 9 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
26 Jan after 34.6 °C 9 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
27 Jan after 32.7 °C 9 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
28 Jan after 28.9 °C 8 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
29 Jan after 31.3 °C 6 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
30 Jan after 32.1 °C 6 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
31 Jan after 33.2 °C 7 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
1 Feb after 33.0 °C 6 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
2 Feb after 33.8 °C 6 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
3 Feb after 33.3 °C 6 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
4 Feb after 31.9 °C 7 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 17 Jan 2026
After · 1 Feb 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 28 January 2026 the air beside the fire reached 114 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 68: 4.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak114 µg/m³
Days over the guideline6 days
PM10639 µg/m³
Optical depth0.51
22232425262728
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)

Other fires nearby

All fires in Sudan ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Um Baru fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 24 January 2026 and 25 January 2026: 2 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 2,579 hectares (25.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Um Baru (2,584 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.5 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 62, class Extreme.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of 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.

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 from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. No 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.