Usuk fire, 9 November 2025 Usuk, Bokora
The fire started on 9 November 2025 in Usuk, Uganda, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,281 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the largest fire in Eastern Region since 2016 (of 27 with a page). Number 5 in Uganda in 2025, of 226.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Bokora · 2025Pian · 2025Bokora · 2025Pian · 2025
- Burnt area
- 9,281ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 16days
- 9 Nov 2025 – 24 Nov 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- counties
- Started on
- 9 Nov
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 201
- in a single hotspot: 61 MW
- Danger at start
- 5
- Low · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 124MW
- 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 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
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
-
Usuk where it started6,158 ha reached on 5 Nov2.5 %
-
3,178 ha reached on 8 Nov0.6 %
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 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 1.9 hectares of built-up land and about 250 residents (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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 Nov | 30.8 °C | 37 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 5 |
| 6 Nov | 31.0 °C | 38 % | 27 km/h | 0.5 mm | Low 6 |
| 7 Nov | 31.4 °C | 35 % | 31 km/h | 0.1 mm | Low 8 |
| 8 Nov | 30.6 °C | 42 % | 36 km/h | 3.5 mm | Very low 1 |
| 9 Nov | 30.2 °C | 40 % | 41 km/h | 0.8 mm | Very low 5 |
| 10 Nov | 31.6 °C | 33 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 9 |
| 11 Nov | 32.7 °C | 25 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 12 Nov | 33.3 °C | 20 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 13 Nov | 32.2 °C | 32 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 14 Nov | 31.9 °C | 31 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 15 Nov | 32.5 °C | 28 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 16 Nov | 33.4 °C | 21 % | 24 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 17 Nov | 31.8 °C | 25 % | 32 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 18 Nov | 31.4 °C | 34 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 19 Nov | 31.9 °C | 33 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 20 Nov | 32.2 °C | 28 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 21 Nov | 32.3 °C | 26 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 22 Nov | 32.5 °C | 20 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 23 Nov | 32.1 °C | 25 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 24 Nov | 33.5 °C | 24 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 25 Nov after | 33.3 °C | 28 % | 43 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 27 |
| 26 Nov after | 33.4 °C | 23 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 27 Nov after | 32.1 °C | 28 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 28 Nov after | 33.5 °C | 23 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 29 Nov after | 33.5 °C | 25 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 30 Nov after | 32.5 °C | 22 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 1 Dec after | 33.1 °C | 18 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 2 Dec after | 33.8 °C | 17 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 3 Dec after | 33.8 °C | 21 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 4 Dec after | 33.4 °C | 24 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 5 Dec after | 32.7 °C | 26 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 6 Dec after | 32.5 °C | 27 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 7 Dec after | 32.9 °C | 25 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 8 Dec after | 33.2 °C | 26 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 9 Dec after | 33.8 °C | 25 % | 46 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 37 |
| 10 Dec after | 32.8 °C | 26 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 11 Dec after | 32.7 °C | 27 % | 37 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 33 |
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 17 November 2025 the air beside the fire reached 30 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 16: 1.1 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 · 201Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 2,868 haBokora19 November 2025 · 10 days · 14 km away
- 3,436 haPian7 November 2025 · 8 days · 22 km away
- 5,089 haBokora18 November 2025 · 13 days · 24 km away
- 3,232 haPian9 November 2025 · 8 days · 32 km away
- 14,167 haBokora7 November 2025 · 25 days · 38 km away
- 3,845 haPian11 November 2025 · 8 days · 40 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Usuk fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 9 November 2025 and 24 November 2025: 16 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 9,281 hectares (92.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Usuk (6,158 ha, 2.5 %); Bokora (3,178 ha, 0.6 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 33.5 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, class 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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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; 6 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 201 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.
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.