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TZ · 2025 yearbook

Wildfires in Tanzania in 2025

161 fires larger than 3,000 hectares in Tanzania in 2025, with 1,033,593 hectares burned according to their perimeters. Here is the whole year: what the official record says, when and where it burned and what the weather was like.

Only fires of 3,000 ha or more get an entry: smaller ones are not in the lists or the entry totals, but they are in the GWIS yearly series.

Series not comparable from August 2025 onwards: GWIS changed its near-real-time perimeters.

The year in a few sentences

  1. According to Copernicus GWIS, 6,232,131 hectares burned in Tanzania in 2025: 66% of the average of the other years from 2012 to 2025 (9,395,783 ha). GWIS figures for 2025 and 2026 are provisional: they are left out of the average and the worst year.

    Copernicus GWIS · See the data

  2. The worst week was 27 August to 2 September: 651,453 hectares burned in seven days, 10% of the year according to Copernicus GWIS.

    Copernicus GWIS · See the data

  3. The largest fire was the Ulanga fire, which started on 19 September 2025 and burned 37,159 hectares: 4% of the area of the year's 161 fires with a page.

    WorldFires · See the data · Open the fire page

  4. The day of highest danger at a fire this year was 30 August 2025: a Fire Weather Index of 66 (extreme on the EFFIS scale) at the Mlele fire, calculated by WorldFires from ERA5.

    WorldFires · ERA5 · See the data · Open the fire page

Official burned area
6.2 M ha
Copernicus GWIS
Fires with a page
161
1,033,593 ha within their perimeters
Largest fire
37k ha
Ulanga · 19 Sept
Highest FWI
66 Extreme
30 Aug · Mlele

Map of the year

Copernicus GWIS
One circle per fire, sized by its area. Tap one to open its page.

Month by month

Hectares within the perimeters by the month the fire started. Tap a month to see it on the map.

Week by week, against other years

Copernicus GWIS

Cumulative burned area in 2025 over the lowest and highest of each week in the record since 2012, and its average. The bars below show what burned each week. Tap the chart to see a week. The average and the band are the Copernicus GWIS climatology for 2012–2025, which includes 2025 itself.

0 3.9 M 7.9 M 11.8 M Worst week · 651k ha Jan Mar May Jul Sep Nov
2025 average 2012–2025 lowest and highest Hectares each week

Every year since 2012

Copernicus GWIS

Hectares burned per year in the official record. Tap a year to open its yearbook.

2025: 6,232,131 ha Average of the other years: 9,395,783 ha

Cite this

Markdown version

Copy the sentences with their source and link. WorldFires data are CC BY 4.0: credit WorldFires and the original source.

- According to Copernicus GWIS, 6,232,131 hectares burned in Tanzania in 2025: 66% of the average of the other years from 2012 to 2025 (9,395,783 ha). GWIS figures for 2025 and 2026 are provisional: they are left out of the average and the worst year.
- The worst week was 27 August to 2 September: 651,453 hectares burned in seven days, 10% of the year according to Copernicus GWIS.
- The largest fire was the Ulanga fire, which started on 19 September 2025 and burned 37,159 hectares: 4% of the area of the year's 161 fires with a page.
- The day of highest danger at a fire this year was 30 August 2025: a Fire Weather Index of 66 (extreme on the EFFIS scale) at the Mlele fire, calculated by WorldFires from ERA5.

WorldFires, “Wildfires in Tanzania in 2025”, https://worldfires.org/en/country/tanzania/2025 (accessed 15 November 2026). Sources: Copernicus GWIS, WorldFires, WorldFires · ERA5.

Fires of 2025, largest first · 161

Burned area in 2025 (Copernicus Land, Sentinel-3)

According to Copernicus Land, 19,238,044 ha burned in 2025: rank 5 of 7 complete years (1 = the most burned). The average of those years is 20,457,840 ha.

The area the Sentinel-3 satellite sees burned each month, separate from the fire pages. It is the same source and the same method every year, so years can be compared with each other. It counts everything that burns, including crop and pasture burning, which is why it does not match the fire pages or the official statistics.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec

Where most burned in 2025

  1. Katavi 2,395,400 ha
  2. Ruvuma 1,945,589 ha
  3. Mbeya 1,885,643 ha
  4. Lindi 1,830,603 ha
  5. Tabora 1,551,142 ha
  6. Kigoma 1,546,000 ha
  7. Singida 1,470,870 ha
  8. Morogoro 1,312,668 ha
  9. Mara 746,901 ha
  10. Simiyu 681,470 ha

The whole series since 2018

Source: Copernicus Land Monitoring Service, “Burnt Area 2018-present (raster 300 m), global, monthly – version 4”, monthly Sentinel-3 product, DOI 10.2909/8fa58061-28ab-49bb-9b77-c26b50733e34. Generated using European Union’s Copernicus Land Monitoring Service information; worldfires.org adds up, by country and region, the true area of the 300 m cells where a burn was detected. Latest month published: May 2026. Product page · Methodology

Sources and limits

Fire-page areas are satellite-measured perimeters and may differ from official statistics. The yearly and weekly record is the Copernicus GWIS estimate. The FWI is our own calculation from ERA5 at each fire's location: it is not an official danger warning.

Perimeters: Copernicus EFFIS and GWIS (and MTBS, NIFC or NBAC in North America). Hotspots: NASA FIRMS (VIIRS). Weather: Copernicus ERA5 via Open-Meteo. How it is calculated