Kilak fire, 18 January 2021 Kilak
The fire started on 18 January 2021 in Kilak, Uganda, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,237 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 100th largest in Northern Region since 2016 (of 1378 with a page). Number 15 in Uganda in 2021, of 141.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Kilak · 2017Kilak · 2019Kilak · 2016Kilak · 2016
- Burnt area
- 3,237ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 16days
- 18 Jan 2021 – 2 Feb 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- counties
- Started on
- 18 Jan
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 123
- in a single hotspot: 35 MW
- Danger at start
- 32
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 74MW
- 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 23 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: 999 ha in 2016, 710 ha in 2017, 176 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,322 ha that had burned before.
- 710 ha Kilak fire, January 2017 2,340 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 176 ha Kilak fire, January 2019 2,301 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 69 ha Kilak fire, January 2016 1,121 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
-
Kilak where it started3,258 ha reached on 18 Jan0.7 %
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.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2020Inside the perimeter there were about 21 hectares of built-up land and about 2,600 residents (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25 Jan | 33.1 °C | 23 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 26 Jan | 33.2 °C | 23 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 27 Jan | 33.8 °C | 20 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 28 Jan | 34.1 °C | 18 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 29 Jan | 34.3 °C | 20 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 30 Jan | 33.9 °C | 20 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 31 Jan | 34.9 °C | 16 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 1 Feb | 34.4 °C | 15 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 2 Feb | 35.2 °C | 14 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 3 Feb after | 34.4 °C | 18 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 4 Feb after | 36.3 °C | 15 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 5 Feb after | 33.0 °C | 27 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 6 Feb after | 33.1 °C | 16 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 7 Feb after | 31.5 °C | 14 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 8 Feb after | 33.0 °C | 14 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 9 Feb after | 32.8 °C | 22 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 10 Feb after | 33.7 °C | 24 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 11 Feb after | 33.1 °C | 26 % | 30 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 36 |
| 12 Feb after | 32.9 °C | 28 % | 27 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.
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 · 123Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 5,830 haKilak2 February 2016 · 11 days · 9 km away
- 4,248 haEast Moyo5 January 2019 · 19 days · 21 km away
- 11,762 haKilak2 January 2017 · 18 days · 27 km away
- 4,431 haNwoya22 January 2016 · 24 days · 29 km away
- 7,451 haAswa8 December 2016 · 29 days · 33 km away
- 5,474 haEast Moyo6 January 2017 · 21 days · 40 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Kilak fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 18 January 2021 to 2 February 2021 (16 days). The perimeter dates it from 25 January 2021 to 2 February 2021.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,237 hectares (32.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Kilak (3,258 ha, 0.7 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.2 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›
Satellite cross-check
History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Start date: 25 January 2021 → 18 January 2021.
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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 25 January 2021 to 2 February 2021. 123 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.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.