How long did the Dodoth fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 5 September 2026 to 12 September 2026 (8 days). The perimeter dates it from 5 September 2026 to 11 September 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 1,040 hectares (10.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Dodoth (1,047 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 28.0 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 35, 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.

UG · Uganda · 2026-09-05 → 2026-09-12

Dodoth fire, 5 September 2026 Dodoth

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

The fire started on 5 September 2026 in Dodoth, Uganda, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,040 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1263th largest in Northern Region since 2016 (of 1377 with a page). Number 236 in Uganda in 2026, of 270.

The power measured by the satellite is low (14.4 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: 1,040ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 8days; 5 Sept 2026 – 12 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; counties
Started on: 5 Sept; 2026
Heat detections: 16; in a single hotspot: 14 MW
Danger at start: 34; High · FWI index
Energy released: 127MW; sum of detected power

Play back 11 Sept 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Sept12 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

56811

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

The weather it burned in

28°high

43km/h · peak gust

25%lowest humidity

It had gone 33 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

2% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 24 ha in 2020.

24 ha Dodoth fire, December 2020 1,919 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Dodoth where it started

1,047 ha reached on 5 Sept

0.1 %

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)
5 Sept	27.4 °C	27 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
6 Sept	28.0 °C	27 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
7 Sept	27.9 °C	25 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
8 Sept	27.9 °C	29 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
9 Sept	27.4 °C	32 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
10 Sept	25.8 °C	33 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
11 Sept	27.0 °C	28 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
12 Sept	27.6 °C	30 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
13 Sept after	26.0 °C	35 %	35 km/h	0.3 mm	High 30
14 Sept after	27.2 °C	32 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
15 Sept after	26.0 °C	37 %	44 km/h	0.1 mm	High 32
16 Sept after	25.9 °C	33 %	55 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
17 Sept after	26.9 °C	30 %	36 km/h	0.3 mm	High 29
18 Sept after	27.6 °C	28 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
19 Sept after	26.4 °C	33 %	48 km/h	0.3 mm	High 35
20 Sept after	27.7 °C	25 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
21 Sept after	27.5 °C	33 %	54 km/h	0.3 mm	High 38
22 Sept after	26.3 °C	37 %	39 km/h	0.4 mm	High 31

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 29 Aug 2026

After · 19 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 10 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 14 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak14 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1024 µg/m³

Optical depth0.36

3456789101112131415

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 · 16Every 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 5 September 2026 to 12 September 2026 (8 days). The perimeter dates it from 5 September 2026 to 11 September 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 1,040 hectares (10.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Dodoth (1,047 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 28.0 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 35, 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

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.

Report an error

What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

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