Burned area
satellite only18,894ha
Perimeter published by GWIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 21 Nov 2025 – 8 Dec 2025
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
SS · South Sudan · –
Wulu fire, 21 November 2025 Wulu, Tonj South
Out · last detection 8 Dec 2025, 11:10 UTC
The fire started on 21 November 2025 in Wulu, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 18,894 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
Number 46 in South Sudan in 2025, of 235.
GWIS near-real-time perimeter, from the layer that changed in August 2025: this fire is not compared with fires from earlier years, because since then the GWIS layer gives more and larger perimeters.
Use this data
Compare with…
Suggestions: Wulu · 2023Wulu · 2024Tonj South · 2019Wulu · 2017
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 only18days
21 Nov 2025 to 8 Dec 2025: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 8 Dec 2025, 11:10 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 only21 Nov 2025
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 21 Nov 2025
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only433
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 52 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 21 Nov 2025 – 8 Dec 2025
+− 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 only1,517MW
Total radiative power on 2 December 2025; hotspots that day: 183.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 2 Dec 2025
+− 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
model28.0FWI · high
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 16.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 21 Nov 2025, 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
model36.9°C · 23% RH
High of 36.9 °C and minimum humidity of 23% on 30 November 2025; gusts of 42 km/h on 26 November 2025.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 21 Nov 2025 – 8 Dec 2025
- 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
-
logLast day with fire: 4 December 2025 → 8 December 2025.
-
logStart date: 28 November 2025 → 21 November 2025.
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
· 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
- 18,894 ha
- Dates
- 21 Nov 2025 – 8 Dec 2025
- Name
- Wulu
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/wulu-2025-11-2?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-2025-11-2.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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-11-21 | 4 | 28 | 35.5 | 20.4 | 28 | 13.8 | 33.8 | 0 | 28 | alto | 1 |
| 2025-11-22 | 6 | 44 | 34.6 | 21.7 | 27 | 13.2 | 32 | 0 | 28.3 | alto | 1 |
| 2025-11-23 | 2 | 14 | 35.8 | 19.9 | 20 | 14.4 | 33.5 | 0 | 33.2 | alto | 1 |
| 2025-11-24 | 1 | 5 | 35.9 | 19.8 | 23 | 12.5 | 29.5 | 0 | 32.5 | alto | 1 |
| 2025-11-25 | 1 | 7 | 36 | 21 | 23 | 15.2 | 36.4 | 0 | 35.4 | alto | 1 |
| 2025-11-26 | 6 | 103 | 35 | 22.1 | 27 | 18.2 | 41.8 | 0 | 38.6 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2025-11-27 | 6 | 36 | 35.5 | 21.5 | 25 | 15.7 | 37.1 | 0 | 37.1 | alto | 1 |
| 2025-11-28 | 17 | 202 | 35 | 21 | 28 | 15.1 | 35.6 | 0 | 36.4 | alto | 1 |
| 2025-11-29 | 26 | 173 | 34.6 | 21.8 | 27 | 15.6 | 36.4 | 0 | 37.4 | alto | 1 |
| 2025-11-30 | 13 | 171 | 36.9 | 22.6 | 23 | 15.6 | 36.4 | 0 | 38.1 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2025-12-01 | 43 | 376 | 36.2 | 21.7 | 23 | 15.3 | 36.7 | 0 | 38.5 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2025-12-02 | 183 | 1,517 | 36.3 | 20.6 | 18 | 17.5 | 40.3 | 0 | 42.8 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2025-12-03 | 80 | 124 | 35.1 | 19.9 | 17 | 17.3 | 39.6 | 0 | 43.2 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2025-12-04 | 38 | 327 | 36.2 | 19.7 | 20 | 13.5 | 33.1 | 0 | 40.1 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2025-12-05 | 2 | 1 | 35.1 | 23.5 | 26 | 10.4 | 25.2 | 0 | 36.5 | alto | 1 |
| 2025-12-06 | 0 | 0 | 35.9 | 22.4 | 20 | 13.2 | 32.4 | 0 | 39.6 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2025-12-07 | 0 | 0 | 35.5 | 23.6 | 28 | 15.9 | 38.5 | 0 | 41.1 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2025-12-08 | 5 | 14 | 36.1 | 22.7 | 26 | 16.8 | 41 | 0 | 42.5 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2025-12-09 | 0 | 0 | 34.1 | 22.7 | 28 | 12.6 | 31 | 0 | 37.7 | alto | 0 |
| 2025-12-10 | 0 | 0 | 33.9 | 23.6 | 26 | 9.3 | 23.8 | 0 | 35.2 | alto | 0 |
| 2025-12-11 | 0 | 0 | 33.9 | 20.2 | 21 | 13.6 | 33.5 | 0 | 39.4 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2025-12-12 | 0 | 0 | 33.5 | 20.3 | 20 | 14.3 | 34.2 | 0 | 40.5 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2025-12-13 | 0 | 0 | 32.9 | 20.4 | 19 | 13.2 | 33.8 | 0 | 39.8 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2025-12-14 | 0 | 0 | 33.5 | 18.3 | 24 | 13.9 | 31.3 | 0 | 40.9 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2025-12-15 | 0 | 0 | 32.1 | 22 | 23 | 14.7 | 34.6 | 0 | 42 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2025-12-16 | 0 | 0 | 32 | 20.7 | 19 | 14.1 | 32.8 | 0 | 41.8 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2025-12-17 | 0 | 0 | 33 | 19.1 | 19 | 12.4 | 27.7 | 0 | 40.5 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2025-12-18 | 0 | 0 | 32.1 | 18.6 | 18 | 13.6 | 33.5 | 0 | 42.1 | muy_alto | 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
- 18,894ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 18days
- 21 Nov 2025 – 8 Dec 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- counties
- Started on
- 21 Nov
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 433
- in a single hotspot: 52 MW
- Danger at start
- 28
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 196MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
21 Nov8 Dec
8 Dec 2025
How it evolved, day by day
21 Nov
25 Nov
29 Nov
2 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
17%lowest humidity
It had gone 16 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
91% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 6,294 ha in 2016, 7,003 ha in 2017, 7,079 ha in 2019, 3,075 ha in 2020, 5,805 ha in 2021, 2,198 ha in 2022, 8,240 ha in 2023, 9,309 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 17,115 ha that had burned before.
- 6,546 ha Wulu fire, December 2023 11,942 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,985 ha Wulu fire, December 2024 13,583 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,822 ha Tonj South fire, December 2019 14,664 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,426 ha Wulu fire, December 2017 7,446 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,810 ha Wulu fire, December 2016 5,914 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 started18,591 ha reached on 21 Nov1.6 %
-
440 ha reached on 23 Nov0.1 %
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 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21 Nov | 35.5 °C | 28 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 22 Nov | 34.6 °C | 27 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 23 Nov | 35.8 °C | 20 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 24 Nov | 35.9 °C | 23 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 25 Nov | 36.0 °C | 23 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 26 Nov | 35.0 °C | 27 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 27 Nov | 35.5 °C | 25 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 28 Nov | 35.0 °C | 28 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 29 Nov | 34.6 °C | 27 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 30 Nov | 36.9 °C | 23 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 1 Dec | 36.2 °C | 23 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 2 Dec | 36.3 °C | 18 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 3 Dec | 35.1 °C | 17 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 4 Dec | 36.2 °C | 20 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 5 Dec | 35.1 °C | 26 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 6 Dec | 35.9 °C | 20 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 7 Dec | 35.5 °C | 28 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 8 Dec | 36.1 °C | 26 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 9 Dec after | 34.1 °C | 28 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 10 Dec after | 33.9 °C | 26 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 11 Dec after | 33.9 °C | 21 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 12 Dec after | 33.5 °C | 20 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 13 Dec after | 32.9 °C | 19 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 14 Dec after | 33.5 °C | 24 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 15 Dec after | 32.1 °C | 23 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 16 Dec after | 32.0 °C | 19 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 17 Dec after | 33.0 °C | 19 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 18 Dec after | 32.1 °C | 18 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 14 Nov 2025
After · 15 Dec 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 5 December 2025 the air beside the fire reached 109 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 73: 4.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
PM2.5 peak109 µg/m³
Days over the guideline12 days
PM10113 µg/m³
Optical depth0.76
WHO 15
26 Nov29 Nov2 Dec5 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 · 433Every 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
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Wulu fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 21 November 2025 to 8 December 2025 (18 days). The perimeter dates it from 28 November 2025 to 4 December 2025.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 18,894 hectares (188.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Wulu (18,591 ha, 1.6 %); Tonj South (440 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.9 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, 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
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: 4 December 2025 → 8 December 2025.
- Start date: 28 November 2025 → 21 November 2025.
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 28 November 2025 to 4 December 2025. 433 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.