Skip to content
worldfires
UG · Uganda · →

Dodoth fire, 9 January 2019 Dodoth

Out · last detection 18 Jan 2019, 23:18 UTC

The fire started on 9 January 2019 in Dodoth, Uganda, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,104 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 60th largest in Northern Region since 2016 (of 1377 with a page). Number 6 in Uganda in 2019, of 105.

Burnt area
4,104ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
9 Jan 2019 – 18 Jan 2019
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
9 Jan
2019
Heat detections
126
in a single hotspot: 33 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Energy released
712MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

18 Jan 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Jan18 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

9101112131415161718

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

31°high
63km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 30 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Dodoth where it started
    4,133 ha reached on 9 Jan
    0.6 %

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.

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)
9 Jan 30.3 °C 16 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
10 Jan 31.3 °C 19 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
11 Jan 30.7 °C 16 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
12 Jan 30.4 °C 13 % 63 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
13 Jan 30.1 °C 13 % 61 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
14 Jan 31.1 °C 16 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
15 Jan 31.3 °C 21 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
16 Jan 30.3 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
17 Jan 31.4 °C 25 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
18 Jan 29.4 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
19 Jan after 29.5 °C 25 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
20 Jan after 31.6 °C 19 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
21 Jan after 31.7 °C 16 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
22 Jan after 31.8 °C 19 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
23 Jan after 30.6 °C 21 % 48 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 42
24 Jan after 31.5 °C 18 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
25 Jan after 32.1 °C 19 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
26 Jan after 32.4 °C 19 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
27 Jan after 31.3 °C 23 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
28 Jan after 32.3 °C 21 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 Jan 2019
After · 25 Jan 2019

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 · 126Every 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Uganda ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Dodoth fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 9 January 2019 and 18 January 2019: 10 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 4,104 hectares (41.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Dodoth (4,133 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.4 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 63 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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

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
What do you think is wrong?

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.

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.