Busongora fire, August 2019 Busongora
The fire started on 16 August 2019 in Busongora, Uganda, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,617 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 97th largest in Western Region since 2016 (of 255 with a page). Number 39 in Uganda in 2019, of 105.
The power measured by the satellite is low (17.1 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
- Burnt area
- 1,617ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 2days
- 16 Aug 2019 – 17 Aug 2019
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- counties
- Started on
- 16 Aug
- 2019
- Heat detections
- 43
- in a single hotspot: 17 MW
- Energy released
- 244MW
- sum of detected power
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.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
Busongora where it started1,628 ha reached on 16 Aug0.7 %
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.
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.
Detections table · 43Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 5,493 haBusongora19 July 2023 · 5 days · 23 km away
- 5,981 haBusongora12 January 2017 · 5 days · 27 km away
- 4,525 haBusongoraJuly 2022 · 11 days · 27 km away
- 3,869 haBunyaruguruFebruary 2025 · 4 days · 31 km away
- 3,292 haBunyaruguru30 July 2020 · 5 days · 37 km away
- 3,081 haBunyaruguru6 January 2017 · 5 days · 39 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Busongora fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 16 August 2019 and 17 August 2019: 2 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 1,617 hectares (16.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Busongora (1,628 ha, 0.7 %).
- 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
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.
Report an error
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.