How long did the Um Durein fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 10 October 2026 to 28 October 2026 (19 days). The perimeter dates it from 10 October 2026 to 21 October 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,256 hectares (52.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Um Durein (4,770 ha, 2.2 %); Talawdi (516 ha, 0.1 %).

Is the Um Durein fire still active?

No fire detections since 29 Oct 2026, 11:47 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 40.5 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 37 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 Sudan (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

SD · Sudan · 2026-10-10 → 2026-10-28

Um Durein fire, 10 October 2026 Um Durein, Talawdi

Out · last detection 29 Oct 2026, 11:47 UTC

The fire started on 10 October 2026 in Um Durein, Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,256 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 59th largest in South Kordofan since 2016 (of 455 with a page). Number 48 in Sudan in 2026, of 294.

The power measured by the satellite is low (25.9 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Talawdi · 2017 Talawdi · 2016 Talawdi · 2016 Talawdi · 2023

Burnt area: 5,256ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 19days; 10 Oct 2026 – 28 Oct 2026
Municipalities hit: 2; localities
Started on: 10 Oct; 2026
Heat detections: 105; in a single hotspot: 26 MW
Danger at start: 38; Very high · FWI index
Average daily power: 59MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Oct28 Oct

Play back 29 Oct 2026

How it evolved, day by day

14 Oct 17 Oct 19 Oct 20 Oct 23 Oct 26 Oct 29 Oct

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

40°high

37km/h · peak gust

9%lowest humidity

It had gone 25 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

34% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,943 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,810 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 3.3% of the area of London (53 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

Um Durein where it started

4,770 ha reached on 14 Oct

2.2 %
Talawdi

516 ha reached on 16 Oct

0.1 %

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) · forecast models, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives

Day	High	Min. humidity	Peak gust	Rain	Danger (FWI)
10 Oct	37.4 °C	27 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
11 Oct	38.3 °C	24 %	37 km/h	0.6 mm	Very high 42
12 Oct	35.7 °C	27 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
13 Oct	33.8 °C	36 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
14 Oct	37.9 °C	27 %	25 km/h	0.1 mm	High 34
15 Oct	38.6 °C	21 %	29 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 38
16 Oct	39.6 °C	14 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 50
17 Oct	38.2 °C	19 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
18 Oct	37.2 °C	26 %	22 km/h	0.3 mm	Very high 39
19 Oct	39.2 °C	15 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
20 Oct	39.2 °C	18 %	31 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 48
21 Oct	40.3 °C	13 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
22 Oct	40.5 °C	13 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
23 Oct	39.7 °C	14 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
24 Oct	39.7 °C	13 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
25 Oct	39.1 °C	12 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
26 Oct	38.5 °C	12 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
27 Oct	36.7 °C	13 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
28 Oct	38.7 °C	9 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
29 Oct after	40.5 °C	11 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 59
30 Oct after	38.0 °C	17 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 58
31 Oct after	39.0 °C	17 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
1 Nov after	39.2 °C	19 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
2 Nov after	40.0 °C	15 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 3 Oct 2026

After · 1 Nov 2026

Before After

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 17 October 2026 the air beside the fire reached 49 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 32: 2.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak49 µg/m³

Days over the guideline4 days

PM10184 µg/m³

Optical depth0.52

WHO 15

891011121314151617

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 · 105Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Sudan ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Um Durein fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 10 October 2026 to 28 October 2026 (19 days). The perimeter dates it from 10 October 2026 to 21 October 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,256 hectares (52.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Um Durein (4,770 ha, 2.2 %); Talawdi (516 ha, 0.1 %).
Is the Um Durein fire still active?: No fire detections since 29 Oct 2026, 11:47 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 40.5 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 37 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 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

31 October 2026 Last day with fire: 24 October 2026 → 28 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.

Report an error

What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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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 10 October 2026 to 21 October 2026. 105 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
We have not matched this page with any official record.
Weather: ECMWF IFS model, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives.
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.

Where it burned