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Dodoth fire, 4 January 2026 Dodoth

Out · last detection 11 Jan 2026, 23:11 UTC

The fire started on 4 January 2026 in Dodoth, Uganda, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,600 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 45th largest in Northern Region since 2016 (of 1377 with a page). Number 9 in Uganda in 2026, of 270.

Burnt area
4,600ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
4 Jan 2026 – 10 Jan 2026
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
4 Jan
2026
Heat detections
123
in a single hotspot: 79 MW
Danger at start
28
High · FWI index
Energy released
868MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

11 Jan 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Jan10 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

4567891011

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
55km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone 21 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

41% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,154 ha in 2019, 1 ha in 2020, 1,742 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,875 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Dodoth where it started
    4,632 ha reached on 1 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)
4 Jan 29.7 °C 31 % 41 km/h 0.2 mm High 28
5 Jan 31.1 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
6 Jan 31.0 °C 17 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
7 Jan 31.3 °C 17 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
8 Jan 30.9 °C 15 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
9 Jan 31.6 °C 17 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
10 Jan 30.5 °C 21 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
11 Jan after 30.5 °C 24 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
12 Jan after 30.6 °C 24 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
13 Jan after 30.6 °C 24 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
14 Jan after 30.5 °C 22 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
15 Jan after 30.6 °C 19 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
16 Jan after 31.5 °C 21 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
17 Jan after 31.5 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
18 Jan after 30.4 °C 34 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
19 Jan after 30.4 °C 32 % 58 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 39
20 Jan after 31.7 °C 26 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm High 36

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Dec 2025
After · 17 Jan 2026

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 10 January 2026 the air beside the fire reached 21 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak21 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1022 µg/m³
Optical depth0.23
2345678910111213
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 · 123Every 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 4 January 2026 and 10 January 2026: 7 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 4,600 hectares (46.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Dodoth (4,632 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.6 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, 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.