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Bariadi fire, July 2018 Bariadi

Out · last detection 21 Jul 2018, 23:13 UTC

The fire started on 15 July 2018 in Bariadi, Tanzania, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,743 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 34th largest in Simiyu since 2016 (of 68 with a page). Number 29 in Tanzania in 2018, of 72.

Burnt area
4,743ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
15 Jul 2018 – 21 Jul 2018
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
15 Jul
2018
Heat detections
120
in a single hotspot: 77 MW
Danger at start
34
High · FWI index
Energy released
918MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

21 Jul 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Jul21 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

15161718192021

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

30°high
37km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone 59 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

26% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 408 ha in 2016, 846 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Bariadi where it started
    4,775 ha reached on 15 Jul
    0.9 %

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.

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)
15 Jul 28.6 °C 34 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
16 Jul 28.3 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
17 Jul 28.7 °C 24 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
18 Jul 28.0 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
19 Jul 29.0 °C 29 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
20 Jul 29.5 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
21 Jul 28.5 °C 33 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
22 Jul after 29.1 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
23 Jul after 28.8 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
24 Jul after 27.5 °C 31 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
25 Jul after 27.4 °C 33 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
26 Jul after 25.7 °C 40 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
27 Jul after 28.1 °C 37 % 26 km/h 0.5 mm High 29
28 Jul after 29.3 °C 34 % 24 km/h 0.5 mm High 28
29 Jul after 29.9 °C 31 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
30 Jul after 27.5 °C 39 % 23 km/h 0.5 mm High 28
31 Jul after 28.6 °C 38 % 28 km/h 0.2 mm High 30

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 8 Jul 2018
After · 28 Jul 2018

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 · 120Every 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Tanzania ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Bariadi fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 15 July 2018 and 21 July 2018: 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 4,743 hectares (47.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Bariadi (4,775 ha, 0.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.5 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, class High.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Tanzania (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: 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
What do you think is wrong?

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 112.

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 (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY 3.0 IGO)). 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.