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Chunya fire, July 2019 Chunya

Out · last detection 29 Jul 2019, 23:22 UTC

The fire started on 14 July 2019 in Chunya, Tanzania, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 17,071 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 6th largest in Mbeya since 2016 (of 147 with a page). Number 6 in Tanzania in 2019, of 123.

Burnt area
17,071ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
15days
14 Jul 2019 – 28 Jul 2019
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
14 Jul
2019
Heat detections
540
in a single hotspot: 267 MW
Danger at start
36
High · FWI index
Energy released
6.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

29 Jul 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Jul28 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

14151617181920212223242526272829

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
50km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

It had gone 55 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

58% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,802 ha in 2016, 5,895 ha in 2017, 2,495 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 9,854 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Chunya where it started
    17,174 ha reached on 12 Jul
    1.0 %

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)
14 Jul 27.5 °C 30 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
15 Jul 26.4 °C 30 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
16 Jul 26.5 °C 26 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
17 Jul 26.7 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
18 Jul 25.4 °C 33 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
19 Jul 27.1 °C 27 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
20 Jul 28.6 °C 28 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
21 Jul 30.4 °C 21 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
22 Jul 26.7 °C 24 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
23 Jul 27.3 °C 23 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
24 Jul 30.3 °C 17 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
25 Jul 31.0 °C 12 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
26 Jul 27.5 °C 21 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
27 Jul 26.6 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
28 Jul 26.3 °C 25 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
29 Jul after 28.4 °C 22 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
30 Jul after 28.7 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
31 Jul after 27.0 °C 34 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
1 Aug after 27.9 °C 38 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
2 Aug after 27.9 °C 37 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
3 Aug after 28.9 °C 26 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
4 Aug after 29.4 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
5 Aug after 30.4 °C 21 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
6 Aug after 30.7 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
7 Aug after 30.2 °C 23 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Jul 2019
After · 4 Aug 2019

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 · 540Every 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 Chunya fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 14 July 2019 and 28 July 2019: 15 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 17,071 hectares (170.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Chunya (17,174 ha, 1.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.0 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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
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.