Pian fire, June 2026 Pian, Bokora
The fire started on 10 June 2026 in Pian, Uganda, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,536 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 494th largest in Northern Region since 2016 (of 1377 with a page). Number 94 in Uganda in 2026, of 270.
- Burnt area
- 1,536ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 7days
- 10 Jun 2026 – 16 Jun 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- counties
- Started on
- 10 Jun
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 20
- in a single hotspot: 45 MW
- Energy released
- 324MW
- sum of detected power
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
58% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 282 ha in 2021, 250 ha in 2022, 874 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 888 ha that had burned before.
- 533 ha Pian fire, November 2025 2,746 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 341 ha Pian fire, November 2025 1,385 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 282 ha Pian fire, November 2021 1,305 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 250 ha Pian fire, October 2022 1,035 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Pian where it started1,295 ha reached on 11 Jun0.7 %
-
252 ha reached on 12 Jun0.0 %
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.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 16 June 2026 the air beside the fire reached 29 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 19: 1.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)
Detections table · 20Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Pian fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 10 June 2026 and 16 June 2026: 7 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 1,536 hectares (15.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Pian (1,295 ha, 0.7 %); Bokora (252 ha, 0.0 %).
- 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.