Kibanda fire, 10 February 2023 Kibanda, Buliisa
The fire started on 10 February 2023 in Kibanda, Uganda, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,007 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 28th largest in Western Region since 2016 (of 255 with a page). Number 4 in Uganda in 2023, of 71.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 3,007ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 5days
- 10 Feb 2023 – 14 Feb 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- counties
- Started on
- 10 Feb
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 77
- in a single hotspot: 192 MW
- Danger at start
- 30
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 288MW
- 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 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.3 mm on 24 Feb.
This area had burned before
97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,128 ha in 2016, 2,612 ha in 2017, 521 ha in 2019, 124 ha in 2020, 1,409 ha in 2021, 154 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,925 ha that had burned before.
- 2,529 ha Kibanda fire, January 2017 41,220 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,128 ha Kibanda fire, February 2016 13,858 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,307 ha Kibanda fire, January 2021 4,390 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 521 ha Kibanda fire, January 2019 2,905 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 154 ha Buliisa fire, January 2022 1,001 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 124 ha Kibanda fire, January 2020 1,710 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 102 ha Buliisa fire, February 2021 2,353 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 83 ha Buliisa fire, December 2017 2,811 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 started2,473 ha reached on 10 Feb0.7 %
-
555 ha reached on 12 Feb0.2 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 Feb | 34.5 °C | 26 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 11 Feb | 37.0 °C | 21 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 12 Feb | 38.1 °C | 8 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 13 Feb | 38.9 °C | 9 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 14 Feb | 37.0 °C | 15 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 15 Feb after | 36.7 °C | 18 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 16 Feb after | 36.4 °C | 20 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 17 Feb after | 35.8 °C | 19 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 18 Feb after | 37.4 °C | 18 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 19 Feb after | 37.4 °C | 16 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 20 Feb after | 38.6 °C | 14 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 21 Feb after | 37.8 °C | 15 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 22 Feb after | 38.1 °C | 13 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 23 Feb after | 36.7 °C | 18 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 24 Feb after | 36.0 °C | 28 % | 27 km/h | 1.3 mm | High 29 |
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 · 77Every 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 · 7 days · 4 km away
- 41,220 haKibanda2 January 2017 · 15 days · 10 km away
- 10,795 haBuliisa6 January 2019 · 9 days · 18 km away
- 7,394 haBuliisa4 January 2018 · 3 days · 22 km away
- 9,718 haBuliisa3 January 2026 · 17 days · 26 km away
- 9,055 haBuliisa15 December 2016 · 16 days · 26 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Kibanda fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 10 February 2023 and 14 February 2023: 5 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 3,007 hectares (30.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Kibanda (2,473 ha, 0.7 %); Buliisa (555 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 38.9 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 31 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, 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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 77 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.