Wulu fire, 8 December 2025 Wulu
The fire started on 8 December 2025 in Wulu, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 23 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 44,549 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 2th largest in Lakes since 2016 (of 158 with a page). Number 22 in South Sudan in 2025, of 292.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Wulu · 2020Wulu · 2017Wulu · 2017Wulu · 2020
- Burnt area
- 44,549ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 23days
- 8 Dec 2025 – 30 Dec 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- counties
- Started on
- 8 Dec
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 1,232
- in a single hotspot: 349 MW
- Danger at start
- 40
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 618MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 33 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
98% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 18,541 ha in 2016, 24,667 ha in 2017, 2,470 ha in 2019, 33,422 ha in 2020, 5,493 ha in 2021, 9,179 ha in 2022, 23,222 ha in 2023, 16,769 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 43,551 ha that had burned before.
- 9,036 ha Wulu fire, January 2020 17,589 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 6,752 ha Wulu fire, November 2017 23,579 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,113 ha Wulu fire, December 2017 9,204 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,970 ha Wulu fire, January 2020 21,134 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,671 ha Wulu fire, December 2016 61,053 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,053 ha Wulu fire, December 2020 5,341 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,999 ha Wulu fire, December 2023 16,139 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,358 ha Wulu fire, December 2024 28,226 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 started44,828 ha reached on 8 Dec3.8 %
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 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 0.11 hectares of built-up land and about 650 residents (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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 Dec | 35.9 °C | 27 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 9 Dec | 34.0 °C | 30 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 10 Dec | 32.8 °C | 33 % | 26 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 33 |
| 11 Dec | 34.0 °C | 23 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 12 Dec | 33.2 °C | 22 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 13 Dec | 32.5 °C | 19 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 14 Dec | 34.0 °C | 25 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 15 Dec | 31.1 °C | 27 % | 36 km/h | 0.3 mm | Very high 39 |
| 16 Dec | 32.0 °C | 20 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 17 Dec | 33.3 °C | 20 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 18 Dec | 32.5 °C | 18 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 19 Dec | 32.7 °C | 19 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 20 Dec | 33.5 °C | 21 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 21 Dec | 34.4 °C | 23 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 22 Dec | 32.4 °C | 27 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 23 Dec | 34.5 °C | 29 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 24 Dec | 35.3 °C | 23 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 25 Dec | 34.6 °C | 23 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 26 Dec | 34.9 °C | 23 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 27 Dec | 35.7 °C | 23 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 28 Dec | 33.5 °C | 19 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 29 Dec | 33.5 °C | 22 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 30 Dec | 33.1 °C | 16 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 31 Dec after | 32.9 °C | 16 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 1 Jan after | 35.2 °C | 17 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 2 Jan after | 35.2 °C | 27 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 3 Jan after | 36.1 °C | 21 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 4 Jan after | 35.7 °C | 16 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 5 Jan after | 35.5 °C | 18 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 6 Jan after | 35.3 °C | 19 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 7 Jan after | 36.3 °C | 18 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 8 Jan after | 37.0 °C | 17 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 9 Jan after | 36.1 °C | 20 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 24 December 2025 the air beside the fire reached 153 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 79: 5.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 1,232Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 21,134 haWulu9 January 2020 · 18 days · 9 km away
- 23,579 haWulu30 November 2017 · 19 days · 12 km away
- 28,226 haWulu18 December 2024 · 33 days · 18 km away
- 23,328 haWulu4 December 2016 · 18 days · 21 km away
- 61,053 haWulu5 December 2016 · 27 days · 26 km away
- 22,366 haWulu21 December 2023 · 26 days · 27 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 8 December 2025 to 30 December 2025 (23 days). The perimeter dates it from 9 December 2025 to 23 December 2025.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 44,549 hectares (445.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Wulu (44,828 ha, 3.8 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.9 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, 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: 23 December 2025 → 30 December 2025.
- Start date: 9 December 2025 → 8 December 2025.
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 9 December 2025 to 23 December 2025. 1,232 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.