Chunya fire, August 2024 Chunya
The fire started on 1 August 2024 in Chunya, Tanzania, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 16,471 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 7th largest in Mbeya since 2016 (of 147 with a page). Number 2 in Tanzania in 2024, of 70.
- Burnt area
- 16,471ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 15days
- 1 Aug 2024 – 15 Aug 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 1 Aug
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 672
- in a single hotspot: 167 MW
- Danger at start
- 40
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 7.4GW
- sum of detected power
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
97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 7,307 ha in 2016, 6,133 ha in 2017, 2,718 ha in 2018, 8,126 ha in 2019, 5,953 ha in 2020, 4,214 ha in 2021, 7,383 ha in 2022, 3,372 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 15,928 ha that had burned before.
- 4,135 ha Chunya fire, July 2016 5,361 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,898 ha Chunya fire, August 2022 15,782 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,789 ha Chunya fire, July 2019 17,071 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,175 ha Chunya fire, June 2019 4,201 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,986 ha Chunya fire, August 2020 4,474 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,348 ha Chunya fire, August 2022 4,844 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,294 ha Chunya fire, June 2017 4,340 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 722 ha Chunya fire, July 2021 8,831 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Chunya where it started16,571 ha reached on 1 Aug0.9 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Aug | 26.1 °C | 27 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 2 Aug | 25.9 °C | 29 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 3 Aug | 27.1 °C | 27 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 4 Aug | 28.1 °C | 17 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 5 Aug | 29.3 °C | 19 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 6 Aug | 28.0 °C | 20 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 7 Aug | 28.2 °C | 26 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 8 Aug | 27.9 °C | 29 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 9 Aug | 27.6 °C | 32 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 10 Aug | 28.0 °C | 31 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 11 Aug | 27.3 °C | 30 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 12 Aug | 28.0 °C | 31 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 13 Aug | 28.7 °C | 29 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 14 Aug | 29.6 °C | 33 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 15 Aug | 29.7 °C | 31 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 16 Aug after | 27.1 °C | 30 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 17 Aug after | 27.3 °C | 28 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 18 Aug after | 27.3 °C | 29 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 19 Aug after | 27.6 °C | 24 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 20 Aug after | 27.5 °C | 25 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 21 Aug after | 28.7 °C | 24 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 22 Aug after | 27.2 °C | 26 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 23 Aug after | 27.0 °C | 27 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 24 Aug after | 27.4 °C | 23 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 25 Aug after | 26.4 °C | 26 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
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.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 4 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 58 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 41: 2.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)
Detections table · 672Every 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 1 August 2024 and 15 August 2024: 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 16,471 hectares (164.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Chunya (16,571 ha, 0.9 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 29.7 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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
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.