How long did the Dodoth fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 20 August 2026 to 4 September 2026 (16 days). The perimeter dates it from 23 August 2026 to 29 August 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,312 hectares (23.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Dodoth (2,327 ha, 0.3 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 29.0 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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.

UG · Uganda · 2026-08-20 → 2026-09-04

Dodoth fire, 20 August 2026 Dodoth

Out · last detection 4 Sept 2026, 11:53 UTC

The fire started on 20 August 2026 in Dodoth, Uganda, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,312 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 219th largest in Northern Region since 2016 (of 1377 with a page). Number 51 in Uganda in 2026, of 270.

The power measured by the satellite is low (9.6 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: 2,312ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 16days; 20 Aug 2026 – 4 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; counties
Started on: 20 Aug; 2026
Heat detections: 50; in a single hotspot: 10 MW
Danger at start: 33; High · FWI index
Energy released: 253MW; sum of detected power

Play back 4 Sept 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Aug4 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

2022232526273031124

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

The weather it burned in

29°high

46km/h · peak gust

20%lowest humidity

It had gone 17 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

7% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2 ha in 2016, 154 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

Dodoth where it started

2,327 ha reached on 20 Aug

0.3 %

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)
20 Aug	27.4 °C	30 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
21 Aug	27.9 °C	27 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
22 Aug	28.2 °C	24 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
23 Aug	27.2 °C	30 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
24 Aug	29.0 °C	23 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
25 Aug	28.4 °C	23 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
26 Aug	28.6 °C	23 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
27 Aug	28.1 °C	26 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
28 Aug	27.8 °C	24 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
29 Aug	29.0 °C	20 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
30 Aug	27.6 °C	24 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
31 Aug	27.8 °C	29 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
1 Sept	28.0 °C	30 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
2 Sept	28.4 °C	27 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
3 Sept	28.7 °C	24 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
4 Sept	28.9 °C	25 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
5 Sept after	28.3 °C	26 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
6 Sept after	28.9 °C	26 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
7 Sept after	28.5 °C	24 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
8 Sept after	28.5 °C	28 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
9 Sept after	27.9 °C	31 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
10 Sept after	26.8 °C	31 %	39 km/h	0.1 mm	High 36
11 Sept after	28.4 °C	25 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
12 Sept after	28.7 °C	28 %	38 km/h	0.1 mm	High 36
13 Sept after	27.6 °C	32 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
14 Sept after	28.4 °C	29 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 13 Aug 2026

After · 11 Sept 2026

Before After

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 20 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 16 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak16 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1025 µg/m³

Optical depth0.32

WHO 15

18192021222324252627282930311234567

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 · 50Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Uganda ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Dodoth fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 20 August 2026 to 4 September 2026 (16 days). The perimeter dates it from 23 August 2026 to 29 August 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,312 hectares (23.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Dodoth (2,327 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 29.0 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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What really happened?

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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.

Where it burned