How long did the Bulambuli fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 24 August 2026 to 11 September 2026 (19 days). The perimeter dates it from 25 August 2026 to 4 September 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,563 hectares (25.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Bulambuli (1,550 ha, 2.3 %); Chekwii (1,031 ha, 0.5 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 36.3 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, class Very high.

Where does this data come from?

From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Uganda (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

UG · Uganda · 2026-08-24 → 2026-09-11

Bulambuli fire, August 2026 Bulambuli, Chekwii

Out · last detection 11 Sept 2026, 11:21 UTC

The fire started on 24 August 2026 in Bulambuli, Uganda, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,563 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 3th largest in Eastern Region since 2016 (of 27 with a page). Number 36 in Uganda in 2026, of 270.

The power measured by the satellite is low (17.7 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: Chekwii · 2017 Bulambuli · 2021 Bulambuli · 2026 Chekwii · 2026

Burnt area: 2,563ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 19days; 24 Aug 2026 – 11 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit: 2; counties
Started on: 24 Aug; 2026
Heat detections: 31; in a single hotspot: 18 MW
Danger at start: 17; Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power: 18MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Aug11 Sept

Play back 11 Sept 2026

How it evolved, day by day

26 Aug 29 Aug 30 Aug 31 Aug 2 Sept 4 Sept 8 Sept

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

36km/h · peak gust

16%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.2 mm on 16 Sept.

This area had burned before

3% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 49 ha in 2017, 39 ha in 2021.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 1.6% of the area of London (26 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

Bulambuli where it started

1,550 ha reached on 26 Aug

2.3 %
Chekwii

1,031 ha reached on 29 Aug

0.5 %

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) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

Day	High	Min. humidity	Peak gust	Rain	Danger (FWI)
24 Aug	34.0 °C	22 %	22 km/h	1.9 mm	Moderate 17
25 Aug	35.1 °C	24 %	26 km/h	0.3 mm	High 29
26 Aug	34.7 °C	25 %	27 km/h	0.8 mm	High 28
27 Aug	34.3 °C	27 %	23 km/h	0.1 mm	High 28
28 Aug	34.9 °C	22 %	24 km/h	0.4 mm	High 32
29 Aug	33.5 °C	28 %	28 km/h	0.4 mm	High 33
30 Aug	35.0 °C	16 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
31 Aug	35.0 °C	22 %	26 km/h	0.3 mm	High 36
1 Sept	32.8 °C	33 %	24 km/h	1.3 mm	High 23
2 Sept	35.0 °C	24 %	28 km/h	0.2 mm	High 35
3 Sept	35.7 °C	23 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
4 Sept	33.9 °C	30 %	23 km/h	0.4 mm	High 34
5 Sept	36.3 °C	17 %	26 km/h	0.5 mm	High 36
6 Sept	34.1 °C	26 %	24 km/h	0.5 mm	Very high 38
7 Sept	34.0 °C	28 %	36 km/h	0.3 mm	Very high 42
8 Sept	34.9 °C	24 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
9 Sept	33.2 °C	29 %	23 km/h	0.3 mm	High 37
10 Sept	32.4 °C	30 %	26 km/h	1.3 mm	High 26
11 Sept	32.8 °C	30 %	22 km/h	1.2 mm	High 23
12 Sept after	32.1 °C	32 %	25 km/h	0.9 mm	High 28
13 Sept after	33.6 °C	28 %	27 km/h	0.7 mm	High 27
14 Sept after	33.6 °C	28 %	24 km/h	0.5 mm	High 34
15 Sept after	33.4 °C	30 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
16 Sept after	33.5 °C	26 %	39 km/h	1.2 mm	High 31

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 17 Aug 2026

After · 18 Sept 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 23 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 41 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 26: 1.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak41 µg/m³

Days over the guideline7 days

PM1043 µg/m³

Optical depth0.49

WHO 15

222324252627282930311234567891011121314

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 · 31Every 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 Uganda ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Bulambuli fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 24 August 2026 to 11 September 2026 (19 days). The perimeter dates it from 25 August 2026 to 4 September 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,563 hectares (25.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Bulambuli (1,550 ha, 2.3 %); Chekwii (1,031 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 36.3 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, class Very high.
Where does this data come from?: From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Uganda (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.

Emergency number: 999 · 112 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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

No changes since 24 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?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy. This is not an emergency service: if there is a fire now, call 999 · 112.

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 25 August 2026 to 4 September 2026. 31 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.

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 (Public Domain). 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