Skip to content
worldfires
UG · Uganda · →

Dodoth fire, 12 December 2020 Dodoth

Out · last detection 22 Dec 2020, 10:39 UTC

The fire started on 12 December 2020 in Dodoth, Uganda, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,150 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 23th largest in Northern Region since 2016 (of 1377 with a page). Number 4 in Uganda in 2020, of 170.

Burnt area
6,150ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
12 Dec 2020 – 21 Dec 2020
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
12 Dec
2020
Heat detections
156
in a single hotspot: 79 MW
Danger at start
18
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
2.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

22 Dec 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Dec21 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

12131415171819202122

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
63km/h · peak gust
26%lowest humidity

It had gone 13 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 31 Dec.

This area had burned before

26% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 645 ha in 2016, 29 ha in 2017, 1,137 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,594 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Dodoth where it started
    6,193 ha reached on 12 Dec
    0.8 %

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)
12 Dec 29.9 °C 29 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
13 Dec 29.5 °C 32 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
14 Dec 29.0 °C 32 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
15 Dec 29.7 °C 26 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
16 Dec 29.3 °C 30 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
17 Dec 29.9 °C 27 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
18 Dec 29.4 °C 31 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
19 Dec 29.2 °C 29 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
20 Dec 27.9 °C 42 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
21 Dec 28.0 °C 47 % 63 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 20
22 Dec after 29.8 °C 35 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
23 Dec after 29.7 °C 34 % 53 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 21
24 Dec after 29.5 °C 36 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
25 Dec after 29.5 °C 37 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
26 Dec after 29.3 °C 32 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
27 Dec after 30.0 °C 27 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
28 Dec after 29.7 °C 25 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
29 Dec after 29.6 °C 30 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
30 Dec after 29.9 °C 33 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
31 Dec after 26.9 °C 50 % 44 km/h 1.1 mm Moderate 12

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Dec 2020
After · 28 Dec 2020

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 · 156Every 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 12 December 2020 and 21 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 6,150 hectares (61.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Dodoth (6,193 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.9 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 63 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 23, 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.