Chunya fire, 19 August 2018 Manyoni, Chunya
The fire started on 19 August 2018 in Chunya, Tanzania, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,838 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 17th largest in Mbeya since 2016 (of 147 with a page). Number 8 in Tanzania in 2018, of 72.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 8,838ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 9days
- 19 Aug 2018 – 27 Aug 2018
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 19 Aug
- 2018
- Heat detections
- 412
- in a single hotspot: 70 MW
- Danger at start
- 45
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 185MW
- 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 more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
53% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,698 ha in 2016, 3,172 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,666 ha that had burned before.
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
-
7,741 ha reached on 19 Aug0.3 %
-
Chunya where it started1,165 ha reached on 13 Aug0.1 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19 Aug | 27.8 °C | 27 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 20 Aug | 27.9 °C | 28 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 21 Aug | 27.5 °C | 28 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 22 Aug | 29.6 °C | 30 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 23 Aug | 29.4 °C | 32 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 24 Aug | 29.0 °C | 26 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 25 Aug | 28.9 °C | 24 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 26 Aug | 28.6 °C | 29 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 27 Aug | 30.3 °C | 25 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 28 Aug after | 30.2 °C | 23 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 29 Aug after | 28.7 °C | 23 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 30 Aug after | 28.9 °C | 22 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 31 Aug after | 28.3 °C | 25 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 1 Sept after | 29.2 °C | 24 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 2 Sept after | 29.2 °C | 24 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 3 Sept after | 29.6 °C | 24 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 4 Sept after | 29.3 °C | 26 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 5 Sept after | 28.0 °C | 32 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 6 Sept after | 28.1 °C | 33 % | 57 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
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.
Detections table · 412Every 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 Chunya fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 19 August 2018 and 27 August 2018: 9 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 8,838 hectares (88.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Manyoni (7,741 ha, 0.3 %); Chunya (1,165 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 30.3 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, class Very 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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 412 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.
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.