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Uror fire, 1 January 2026 Uror

Out · last detection 3 Jan 2026, 11:24 UTC

The fire started on 1 January 2026 in Uror, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,664 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 341th largest in Jonglei since 2016 (of 427 with a page). Number 139 in South Sudan in 2026, of 182.

Burnt area
5,664ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
1 Jan 2026 – 3 Jan 2026
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
1 Jan
2026
Heat detections
124
in a single hotspot: 118 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
3.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

3 Jan 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Jan3 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

13

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
34km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

82% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 946 ha in 2016, 616 ha in 2017, 1,464 ha in 2018, 130 ha in 2020, 2,417 ha in 2021, 2,840 ha in 2022, 1,037 ha in 2023, 1,170 ha in 2024, 714 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,649 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Uror where it started
    5,702 ha reached on 1 Jan
    0.5 %

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)
1 Jan 34.8 °C 17 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
2 Jan 32.3 °C 24 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
3 Jan 36.1 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
4 Jan after 35.3 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
5 Jan after 35.1 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
6 Jan after 36.2 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
7 Jan after 35.9 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
8 Jan after 36.6 °C 20 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
9 Jan after 37.3 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
10 Jan after 35.3 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
11 Jan after 35.3 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
12 Jan after 35.4 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
13 Jan after 36.8 °C 21 % 38 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 · 25 Dec 2025
After · 10 Jan 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 3 January 2026 the air beside the fire reached 218 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 102: 6.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak218 µg/m³
Days over the guideline8 days
PM10224 µg/m³
Optical depth1.44
3031123456
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 · 124Every 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in South Sudan ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Uror fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 January 2026 and 3 January 2026: 3 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 5,664 hectares (56.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Uror (5,702 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.1 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, class Very high.
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.

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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.