Kibanda fire, 26 December 2016 Kibanda, Buliisa
The fire started on 26 December 2016 in Kibanda, Uganda, and satellites saw it burning for 24 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 41,220 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the largest fire in Western Region since 2016 (of 255 with a page). The largest in Uganda in 2016, of 297.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 41,220ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 24days
- 26 Dec 2016 – 18 Jan 2017
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- counties
- Started on
- 26 Dec
- 2016
- Heat detections
- 1,210
- in a single hotspot: 133 MW
- Danger at start
- 38
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 610MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 10 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.1 mm on 28 Jan.
This area had burned before
44% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 18,143 ha in 2016.
- 12,007 ha Kibanda fire, February 2016 13,858 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,114 ha Kibanda fire, February 2016 3,244 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,029 ha Buliisa fire, February 2016 2,438 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,283 ha Kibanda fire, February 2016 1,569 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 498 ha Kibanda fire, February 2016 1,071 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 212 ha Buliisa fire, December 2016 9,055 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Kibanda where it started35,760 ha reached on 28 Dec10.0 %
-
5,743 ha reached on 26 Dec2.5 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 26 Dec | 36.4 °C | 18 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 27 Dec | 36.4 °C | 14 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 28 Dec | 35.6 °C | 15 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 29 Dec | 34.9 °C | 18 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 30 Dec | 34.8 °C | 24 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 31 Dec | 34.2 °C | 28 % | 28 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 33 |
| 1 Jan | 35.7 °C | 17 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 2 Jan | 35.0 °C | 23 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 3 Jan | 34.2 °C | 28 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 4 Jan | 35.8 °C | 17 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 5 Jan | 37.6 °C | 8 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 6 Jan | 37.9 °C | 5 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 7 Jan | 37.8 °C | 10 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 8 Jan | 36.1 °C | 15 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 9 Jan | 35.6 °C | 16 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 10 Jan | 36.2 °C | 14 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 11 Jan | 37.0 °C | 10 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 12 Jan | 36.6 °C | 12 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 13 Jan | 36.8 °C | 12 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 14 Jan | 36.6 °C | 12 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 15 Jan | 37.4 °C | 13 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 16 Jan | 38.4 °C | 8 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 17 Jan | 39.1 °C | 5 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 18 Jan | 38.3 °C | 10 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 19 Jan after | 37.2 °C | 13 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 20 Jan after | 37.1 °C | 18 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 21 Jan after | 37.3 °C | 15 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 22 Jan after | 37.6 °C | 17 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 23 Jan after | 38.6 °C | 11 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 24 Jan after | 38.3 °C | 10 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 25 Jan after | 37.6 °C | 12 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 26 Jan after | 37.5 °C | 13 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 27 Jan after | 36.9 °C | 20 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 28 Jan after | 33.7 °C | 31 % | 36 km/h | 2.1 mm | Moderate 20 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · 1,210Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 13,858 haKibanda9 February 2016 · 10 days · 7 km away
- 7,394 haBuliisa29 December 2017 · 9 days · 18 km away
- 10,795 haBuliisa31 December 2018 · 16 days · 19 km away
- 9,055 haBuliisa13 December 2016 · 19 days · 25 km away
- 9,718 haBuliisa3 January 2026 · 17 days · 26 km away
- 6,881 haNwoya4 February 2021 · 7 days · 33 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Kibanda fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 26 December 2016 to 18 January 2017 (24 days). The perimeter dates it from 2 January 2017 to 16 January 2017.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 41,220 hectares (412.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Kibanda (35,760 ha, 10.0 %); Buliisa (5,743 ha, 2.5 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 39.1 °C, humidity dropped to 5 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 64, class Extreme.
- 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›
Satellite cross-check
History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 5 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 2 January 2017 to 16 January 2017. 1,210 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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.