Chunya fire, August 2025 Chunya, Manyoni
The fire started on 28 August 2025 in Chunya, Tanzania, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 32,334 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 3th largest in Mbeya since 2016 (of 147 with a page). Number 2 in Tanzania in 2025, of 161.
- Burnt area
- 32,334ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 16days
- 28 Aug 2025 – 12 Sept 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 28 Aug
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 1,033
- in a single hotspot: 129 MW
- Danger at start
- 42
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 8.1GW
- 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
95% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 8,420 ha in 2016, 12,733 ha in 2017, 5,872 ha in 2018, 12,618 ha in 2019, 7,818 ha in 2020, 10,466 ha in 2021, 7,209 ha in 2022, 10,777 ha in 2023, 7,683 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 30,751 ha that had burned before.
- 8,805 ha Chunya fire, July 2019 17,071 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 6,607 ha Chunya fire, July 2021 8,831 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,987 ha Chunya fire, August 2024 16,471 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,625 ha Chunya fire, July 2017 5,202 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,397 ha Chunya fire, August 2020 3,647 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,542 ha Chunya fire, September 2021 4,702 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,397 ha Chunya fire, July 2017 12,300 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,288 ha Chunya fire, August 2022 4,844 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Chunya where it started32,363 ha reached on 27 Aug1.8 %
-
163 ha reached on 29 Aug0.0 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 27 Aug | 27.9 °C | 24 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 28 Aug | 30.4 °C | 17 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 29 Aug | 29.2 °C | 15 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 30 Aug | 27.8 °C | 24 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 31 Aug | 28.5 °C | 17 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 1 Sept | 29.5 °C | 14 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 2 Sept | 29.0 °C | 19 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 3 Sept | 29.4 °C | 20 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 4 Sept | 29.8 °C | 17 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 5 Sept | 29.8 °C | 14 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 6 Sept | 30.5 °C | 13 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 7 Sept | 29.9 °C | 17 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 8 Sept | 29.5 °C | 22 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 9 Sept | 29.7 °C | 29 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 10 Sept | 31.5 °C | 21 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 11 Sept | 30.8 °C | 18 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 12 Sept | 29.3 °C | 16 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 13 Sept after | 29.7 °C | 16 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 14 Sept after | 31.9 °C | 19 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 15 Sept after | 29.9 °C | 31 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 16 Sept after | 28.8 °C | 31 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 17 Sept after | 29.1 °C | 31 % | 28 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 35 |
| 18 Sept after | 30.9 °C | 25 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 19 Sept after | 31.1 °C | 26 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 20 Sept after | 29.6 °C | 22 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 21 Sept after | 29.5 °C | 24 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 22 Sept after | 30.3 °C | 26 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 23 Sept after | 30.3 °C | 23 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
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 8 September 2025 the air beside the fire reached 44 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 26: 1.8 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 · 1,033Every 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 28 August 2025 and 12 September 2025: 16 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 32,334 hectares (323.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Chunya (32,363 ha, 1.8 %); Manyoni (163 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 31.5 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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.