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Chunya fire, 15 August 2022 Chunya

Out · last detection 19 Aug 2022, 11:34 UTC

The fire started on 15 August 2022 in Chunya, Tanzania, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,844 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 53th largest in Mbeya since 2016 (of 147 with a page). Number 22 in Tanzania in 2022, of 71.

Burnt area
4,844ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
15 Aug 2022 – 19 Aug 2022
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
15 Aug
2022
Heat detections
128
in a single hotspot: 63 MW
Danger at start
31
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

19 Aug 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Aug19 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

1516171819

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
40km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

96% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,535 ha in 2016, 2,258 ha in 2017, 1,192 ha in 2018, 3,661 ha in 2019, 946 ha in 2020, 1,359 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,635 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Chunya where it started
    4,873 ha reached on 14 Aug
    0.3 %

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 Aug 29.5 °C 27 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
16 Aug 28.7 °C 17 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
17 Aug 27.2 °C 30 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
18 Aug 28.0 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
19 Aug 29.4 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
20 Aug after 30.7 °C 24 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
21 Aug after 29.5 °C 26 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
22 Aug after 25.1 °C 37 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
23 Aug after 26.8 °C 28 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
24 Aug after 26.5 °C 27 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
25 Aug after 26.5 °C 27 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
26 Aug after 27.9 °C 25 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
27 Aug after 27.5 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
28 Aug after 27.6 °C 30 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
29 Aug after 28.3 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 33

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 8 Aug 2022
After · 26 Aug 2022

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 · 128Every 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 15 August 2022 and 19 August 2022: 5 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 4,844 hectares (48.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Chunya (4,873 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.5 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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.