How long did the Pian fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 14 September 2026 to 26 September 2026 (13 days). The perimeter dates it from 17 September 2026 to 20 September 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 1,217 hectares (12.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Pian (948 ha, 0.5 %); Usuk (277 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 37.0 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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.

UG · Uganda · 2026-09-14 → 2026-09-26

Pian fire, 14 September 2026 Pian, Usuk

Out · last detection 26 Sept 2026, 11:42 UTC

The fire started on 14 September 2026 in Pian, Uganda, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,217 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 899th largest in Northern Region since 2016 (of 1377 with a page). Number 171 in Uganda in 2026, of 270.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Pian · 2021 Pian · 2020 Pian · 2025 Pian · 2025

Burnt area: 1,217ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 13days; 14 Sept 2026 – 26 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit: 2; counties
Started on: 14 Sept; 2026
Heat detections: 22; in a single hotspot: 68 MW
Danger at start: 39; Very high · FWI index
Average daily power: 59MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Sept26 Sept

Play back 26 Sept 2026

How it evolved, day by day

17 Sept 18 Sept 19 Sept 20 Sept 26 Sept

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

38km/h · peak gust

13%lowest humidity

It had gone 36 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.7 mm on 6 Oct.

This area had burned before

41% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 54 ha in 2020, 489 ha in 2021, 13 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 501 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 0.8% of the area of London (12 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

Pian where it started

948 ha

0.5 %
Usuk

277 ha

0.1 %

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 2025

Built-up area< 0.1 ha

Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

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)
14 Sept	35.1 °C	24 %	25 km/h	0.2 mm	Very high 39
15 Sept	34.6 °C	27 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
16 Sept	35.3 °C	22 %	38 km/h	0.1 mm	High 38
17 Sept	32.0 °C	39 %	31 km/h	9.4 mm	Low 6
18 Sept	32.4 °C	33 %	21 km/h	0.6 mm	Moderate 17
19 Sept	34.8 °C	24 %	26 km/h	0.2 mm	High 30
20 Sept	36.5 °C	13 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
21 Sept	35.5 °C	22 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
22 Sept	34.5 °C	27 %	23 km/h	0.3 mm	High 32
23 Sept	34.5 °C	29 %	31 km/h	0.4 mm	High 36
24 Sept	34.3 °C	26 %	30 km/h	0.1 mm	High 37
25 Sept	34.5 °C	26 %	28 km/h	0.1 mm	High 36
26 Sept	37.0 °C	18 %	24 km/h	0.4 mm	High 36
27 Sept after	36.7 °C	18 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
28 Sept after	37.4 °C	18 %	25 km/h	0.3 mm	High 36
29 Sept after	34.5 °C	30 %	30 km/h	0.4 mm	High 37
30 Sept after	36.4 °C	12 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
1 Oct after	34.0 °C	22 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
2 Oct after	34.9 °C	16 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
3 Oct after	36.9 °C	17 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
4 Oct after	36.8 °C	16 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 58
5 Oct after	37.2 °C	19 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
6 Oct after	36.8 °C	23 %	42 km/h	1.7 mm	High 37

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 7 Sept 2026

After · 3 Oct 2026

Before After

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 · Copernicus

On 17 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 32 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 17: 1.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak32 µg/m³

Days over the guideline1 day

PM1033 µg/m³

Optical depth0.45

WHO 15

14151617181920212223242526272829

Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 22Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Uganda ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Pian fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 14 September 2026 to 26 September 2026 (13 days). The perimeter dates it from 17 September 2026 to 20 September 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 1,217 hectares (12.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Pian (948 ha, 0.5 %); Usuk (277 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 37.0 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

25 October 2026 Start date: 16 September 2026 → 14 September 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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.

How we know this

Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 17 September 2026 to 20 September 2026. 22 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 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.

Where it burned