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Dodoth fire, 19 December 2020 Dodoth

Out · last detection 27 Dec 2020, 10:45 UTC

The fire started on 19 December 2020 in Dodoth, Uganda, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,309 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 9th largest in Northern Region since 2016 (of 1377 with a page). Number 2 in Uganda in 2020, of 170.

The power measured by the satellite is low (19.1 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
9,309ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
19 Dec 2020 – 28 Dec 2020
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
19 Dec
2020
Heat detections
184
in a single hotspot: 19 MW
Danger at start
28
High · FWI index
Energy released
587MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

27 Dec 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Dec28 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

192021222324252627

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

The weather it burned in

30°high
51km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 18 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.2 mm on 31 Dec.

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
    7,847 ha reached on 17 Dec
    1.1 %

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)
17 Dec 30.3 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
18 Dec 29.5 °C 26 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
19 Dec 29.9 °C 25 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
20 Dec 28.4 °C 36 % 48 km/h 0.1 mm High 28
21 Dec 28.4 °C 38 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
22 Dec 29.9 °C 31 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
23 Dec 30.0 °C 29 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
24 Dec 30.2 °C 29 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
25 Dec 30.3 °C 29 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
26 Dec 30.2 °C 27 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
27 Dec 29.6 °C 23 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
28 Dec 29.4 °C 23 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
29 Dec after 29.6 °C 26 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
30 Dec after 30.1 °C 30 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
31 Dec after 26.4 °C 46 % 43 km/h 3.2 mm Low 6

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 12 Dec 2020
After · 4 Jan 2021

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 · 184Every 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 19 December 2020 and 28 December 2020: 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 9,309 hectares (93.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Dodoth (7,847 ha, 1.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.3 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, class 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.