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Nwoya fire, 3 January 2017 Nwoya

Out · last detection 8 Jan 2017, 11:55 UTC

The fire started on 3 January 2017 in Nwoya, Uganda, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,428 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 84th largest in Northern Region since 2016 (of 1377 with a page). Number 16 in Uganda in 2017, of 244.

Burnt area
3,428ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
3 Jan 2017 – 7 Jan 2017
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
3 Jan
2017
Heat detections
107
in a single hotspot: 41 MW
Danger at start
30
High · FWI index
Energy released
796MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

8 Jan 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Jan7 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

345678

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
52km/h · peak gust
6%lowest humidity

It had gone 21 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

9% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 406 ha in 2016. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 307 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Nwoya where it started
    3,451 ha reached on 3 Jan
    0.8 %

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)
3 Jan 34.1 °C 24 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
4 Jan 34.9 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
5 Jan 36.4 °C 8 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
6 Jan 36.7 °C 6 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
7 Jan 37.0 °C 9 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
8 Jan after 35.4 °C 15 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
9 Jan after 35.1 °C 15 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
10 Jan after 35.7 °C 14 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
11 Jan after 36.0 °C 11 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
12 Jan after 35.6 °C 12 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
13 Jan after 35.8 °C 12 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
14 Jan after 35.7 °C 13 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
15 Jan after 36.9 °C 12 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
16 Jan after 37.2 °C 8 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
17 Jan after 37.7 °C 7 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 27 Dec 2016
After · 14 Jan 2017

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 · 107Every 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Uganda ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Nwoya fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 January 2017 and 7 January 2017: 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 3,428 hectares (34.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Nwoya (3,451 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.0 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, 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

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
What do you think is wrong?

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.