Nwoya fire, March 2019 Nwoya
The fire started on 2 March 2019 in Nwoya, Uganda, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,071 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 1179th largest in Northern Region since 2016 (of 1377 with a page). Number 92 in Uganda in 2019, of 105.
The power measured by the satellite is low (10.5 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
- 1,071ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 3days
- 2 Mar 2019 – 4 Mar 2019
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- counties
- Started on
- 2 Mar
- 2019
- Heat detections
- 21
- in a single hotspot: 11 MW
- Average daily power
- 28MW
- 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.
This area had burned before
49% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 64 ha in 2016, 527 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 528 ha that had burned before.
- 508 ha Nwoya fire, January 2017 2,782 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 26 ha Nwoya fire, February 2016 1,710 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 19 ha Nwoya fire, February 2016 1,915 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 19 ha Nwoya fire, December 2016 2,891 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 19 ha Nwoya fire, January 2017 4,037 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Nwoya where it started1,078 ha reached on 2 Mar0.3 %
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.
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 · 21Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 16,324 haNwoya6 January 2026 · 17 days · 16 km away
- 10,951 haNwoya28 January 2016 · 18 days · 21 km away
- 10,795 haBuliisa6 January 2019 · 9 days · 21 km away
- 9,718 haBuliisa3 January 2026 · 17 days · 21 km away
- 13,858 haKibanda9 February 2016 · 7 days · 24 km away
- 9,055 haBuliisa15 December 2016 · 16 days · 25 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Nwoya fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 2 March 2019 and 4 March 2019: 3 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 1,071 hectares (10.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Nwoya (1,078 ha, 0.3 %).
- 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
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.