Burned area
satellite only5,251ha
Perimeter published by GWIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 17 Dec 2024 – 30 Dec 2024
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
SS · South Sudan · –
Wulu fire, 17 December 2024 Wulu
Out · last detection 30 Dec 2024, 11:37 UTC
The fire started on 17 December 2024 in Wulu, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,251 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 112th largest in Lakes since 2016 (of 119 with a page). Number 161 in South Sudan in 2024, of 180.
Use this data
Compare with…
Suggestions: Maridi · 2016Yambio · 2020Wulu · 2017Wulu · 2020
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-10-26matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only14days
17 Dec 2024 to 30 Dec 2024: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 30 Dec 2024, 11:37 UTC
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only17 Dec 2024
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 17 Dec 2024
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only209
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 64 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 17 Dec 2024 – 30 Dec 2024
+− cross-check
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
The worst day
satellite only799MW
Total radiative power on 20 December 2024; hotspots that day: 82.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 20 Dec 2024
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model53.8FWI · extreme
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 21.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 17 Dec 2024, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model37.3°C · 18% RH
High of 37.3 °C and minimum humidity of 18% on 19 December 2024; gusts of 42 km/h on 30 December 2024.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 17 Dec 2024 – 30 Dec 2024
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
logLast day with fire: 23 December 2024 → 30 December 2024.
-
· reconstructed GHSLPopulation and built-up area computed
What was saved on 26 October 2026
Every night a snapshot of what the page shows is saved. If anything changes, it appears in the list as a log entry.
- Area
- 5,251 ha
- Dates
- 17 Dec 2024 – 30 Dec 2024
- Name
- Wulu
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/wulu-2024-12-3?v=2026-10-26A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire wulu-2024-12-3.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024-12-17 | 15 | 175 | 36.5 | 24.7 | 25 | 12.7 | 31.7 | 0 | 53.8 | extremo | 1 |
| 2024-12-18 | 13 | 334 | 36.7 | 25.4 | 21 | 12.5 | 27.7 | 0 | 54 | extremo | 1 |
| 2024-12-19 | 24 | 130 | 37.3 | 23.5 | 18 | 9.3 | 21.2 | 0 | 41.9 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2024-12-20 | 82 | 799 | 34.4 | 23.2 | 22 | 10.6 | 25.2 | 0 | 44.2 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2024-12-21 | 29 | 130 | 35.5 | 23.5 | 14 | 13.1 | 32.4 | 0 | 57.4 | extremo | 1 |
| 2024-12-22 | 8 | 13 | 34.3 | 22.9 | 15 | 14.2 | 34.2 | 0 | 62.2 | extremo | 1 |
| 2024-12-23 | 3 | 32 | 36.3 | 23.3 | 19 | 12.9 | 33.5 | 0 | 57.6 | extremo | 1 |
| 2024-12-24 | 6 | 52 | 36 | 24.7 | 18 | 10.6 | 30.6 | 0 | 55.8 | extremo | 1 |
| 2024-12-25 | 5 | 26 | 35.6 | 23 | 17 | 13.5 | 33.5 | 0 | 61.9 | extremo | 1 |
| 2024-12-26 | 0 | 0 | 35.8 | 22.9 | 15 | 14.5 | 36.4 | 0 | 61.5 | extremo | 1 |
| 2024-12-27 | 6 | 6 | 35.8 | 24.3 | 16 | 14 | 36.4 | 0 | 63.3 | extremo | 1 |
| 2024-12-28 | 7 | 21 | 35.7 | 25.7 | 21 | 14.8 | 36.7 | 0 | 62.1 | extremo | 1 |
| 2024-12-29 | 7 | 24 | 36.7 | 23.9 | 18 | 15.3 | 36.7 | 0 | 61 | extremo | 1 |
| 2024-12-30 | 4 | 14 | 36.4 | 24.8 | 18 | 17.2 | 41.8 | 0 | 65.5 | extremo | 1 |
| 2024-12-31 | 0 | 0 | 36 | 24.1 | 16 | 16.5 | 40 | 0 | 67.1 | extremo | 0 |
| 2025-01-01 | 0 | 0 | 34.5 | 23.6 | 15 | 16.7 | 38.9 | 0 | 66.6 | extremo | 0 |
| 2025-01-02 | 0 | 0 | 35.5 | 22.2 | 16 | 14.4 | 35.6 | 0 | 61.7 | extremo | 0 |
| 2025-01-03 | 0 | 0 | 36.5 | 23.2 | 15 | 12.7 | 32.8 | 0 | 62.9 | extremo | 0 |
| 2025-01-04 | 0 | 0 | 37.6 | 23.3 | 17 | 10.6 | 29.5 | 0 | 58.4 | extremo | 0 |
| 2025-01-05 | 0 | 0 | 38.2 | 23.4 | 16 | 11.7 | 33.5 | 0 | 56.9 | extremo | 0 |
| 2025-01-06 | 0 | 0 | 36.9 | 24.9 | 15 | 14.8 | 38.2 | 0 | 64.8 | extremo | 0 |
| 2025-01-07 | 0 | 0 | 35.8 | 24.9 | 13 | 14.4 | 33.8 | 0 | 63.1 | extremo | 0 |
| 2025-01-08 | 0 | 0 | 35.8 | 23.4 | 12 | 10.2 | 27.4 | 0 | 57.8 | extremo | 0 |
| 2025-01-09 | 0 | 0 | 36.7 | 22.6 | 12 | 11.4 | 30.6 | 0 | 63.8 | extremo | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: GWIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0), GHSL (JRC). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 5,251ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 14days
- 17 Dec 2024 – 30 Dec 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- counties
- Started on
- 17 Dec
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 209
- in a single hotspot: 64 MW
- Danger at start
- 54
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 135MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
17 Dec30 Dec
30 Dec 2024
How it evolved, day by day
17 Dec
20 Dec
23 Dec
27 Dec
30 Dec
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
37°high
42km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity
It had gone 21 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,684 ha in 2016, 3,971 ha in 2017, 1,705 ha in 2019, 2,667 ha in 2020, 1,805 ha in 2021, 1,481 ha in 2022, 747 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,245 ha that had burned before.
- 3,277 ha Wulu fire, November 2017 23,579 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,070 ha Wulu fire, January 2020 21,134 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 320 ha Wulu fire, December 2023 5,868 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 280 ha Wulu fire, January 2016 5,441 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 60 ha Wulu fire, December 2016 23,328 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
-
Wulu where it started5,284 ha reached on 17 Dec0.4 %
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 2025Built-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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17 Dec | 36.5 °C | 25 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 18 Dec | 36.7 °C | 21 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 19 Dec | 37.3 °C | 18 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 20 Dec | 34.4 °C | 22 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 21 Dec | 35.5 °C | 14 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 22 Dec | 34.3 °C | 15 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 23 Dec | 36.3 °C | 19 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 24 Dec | 36.0 °C | 18 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 25 Dec | 35.6 °C | 17 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 26 Dec | 35.8 °C | 15 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 27 Dec | 35.8 °C | 16 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 28 Dec | 35.7 °C | 21 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 29 Dec | 36.7 °C | 18 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 30 Dec | 36.4 °C | 18 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 66 |
| 31 Dec after | 36.0 °C | 16 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 67 |
| 1 Jan after | 34.5 °C | 15 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 67 |
| 2 Jan after | 35.5 °C | 16 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 3 Jan after | 36.5 °C | 15 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 4 Jan after | 37.6 °C | 17 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 5 Jan after | 38.2 °C | 16 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 6 Jan after | 36.9 °C | 15 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 65 |
| 7 Jan after | 35.8 °C | 13 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 8 Jan after | 35.8 °C | 12 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 9 Jan after | 36.7 °C | 12 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 53.8, a minimum humidity of 25% and 21 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 26.
FWI at the start
53.8
Minimum humidity
25 %
Days without rain
21
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Wulu fire, 17 December 2024
5,251 ha
14 days
FWI 53.8
Min. humidity 25 %
Maridi fire, December 2016
6,130 ha
13 days
FWI 51.7
Min. humidity 25 %
66 km away, in 2016
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Yambio fire, January 2020
10,964 ha
20 days
FWI 56.3
Min. humidity 24 %
69 km away, in 2020
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Wulu fire, December 2022
5,110 ha
11 days
FWI 49.6
Min. humidity 24 %
33 km away, in 2022
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Mundri West fire, December 2017
5,734 ha
17 days
FWI 56.6
Min. humidity 26 %
178 km away, in 2017
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Wulu fire, December 2023
5,874 ha
17 days
FWI 53.4
Min. humidity 20 %
54 km away, in 2023
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
What happened to them
- 13 days
- median duration
- 7,313 ha
- median area
- 19 %
- went past 10,000 ha
- —
- rain at the end (median; 0 of 26 had it)
It burned an area similar to its twins (5,251 ha against a median of 7,313 ha) and lasted 14 days, against 13 days.
In none of them did 1 mm fall in the ten days after the end: they all went out without rain.
This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it
How it ended
—first rain
—no rain in ten days
42km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 30 Dec, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. None of its 26 twins had rain when they ended.
Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)
How a twin is chosen
- Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
- Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
- Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
- Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
- They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 10 Dec 2024
After · 6 Jan 2025
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
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 19 December 2024 the air beside the fire reached 109 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 61: 4.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
PM2.5 peak109 µg/m³
Days over the guideline12 days
PM10112 µg/m³
Optical depth0.95
WHO 15
15 Dec18 Dec21 Dec24 Dec
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 · 209Every 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
- 44,549 haWulu8 December 2025 · 23 days · 8 km away
- 21,134 haWulu9 January 2020 · 18 days · 9 km away
- 23,579 haWulu30 November 2017 · 19 days · 13 km away
- 28,216 haWulu18 December 2024 · 33 days · 18 km away
- 23,328 haWulu4 December 2016 · 18 days · 18 km away
- 22,366 haWulu21 December 2023 · 26 days · 22 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Wulu fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 17 December 2024 to 30 December 2024 (14 days). The perimeter dates it from 17 December 2024 to 23 December 2024.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,251 hectares (52.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Wulu (5,284 ha, 0.4 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.3 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 66, class 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.
- How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
- Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 26. Their median duration was 13 days and their median area 7,313 ha; 19 % went past 10,000 ha. In none of them did 1 mm fall in the ten days after the end: they all went out without rain.
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 · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 23 December 2024 → 30 December 2024.
RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version
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 17 December 2024 to 23 December 2024. 209 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.