Skip to content
worldfires
TZ · Tanzania · →

Iringa fire, July 2018 Iringa

Out · last detection 26 Jul 2018, 10:36 UTC

The fire started on 16 July 2018 in Iringa, Tanzania, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,620 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 16th largest in Iringa since 2016 (of 71 with a page). Number 3 in Tanzania in 2018, of 72.

Burnt area
12,620ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
16 Jul 2018 – 25 Jul 2018
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
16 Jul
2018
Heat detections
599
in a single hotspot: 92 MW
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
3.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

26 Jul 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Jul25 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

1617181920212223242526

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

The weather it burned in

28°high
39km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

29% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,188 ha in 2016, 443 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Iringa where it started
    12,695 ha reached on 16 Jul
    0.7 %

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)
16 Jul 27.6 °C 24 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
17 Jul 26.3 °C 27 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
18 Jul 27.0 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
19 Jul 26.9 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
20 Jul 26.8 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
21 Jul 27.1 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
22 Jul 27.4 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
23 Jul 27.0 °C 28 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
24 Jul 26.5 °C 25 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
25 Jul 27.4 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
26 Jul after 26.4 °C 34 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
27 Jul after 24.7 °C 41 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
28 Jul after 27.6 °C 35 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
29 Jul after 23.7 °C 50 % 27 km/h 0.1 mm High 26
30 Jul after 28.0 °C 36 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
31 Jul after 27.8 °C 35 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
1 Aug after 28.3 °C 35 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
2 Aug after 29.1 °C 36 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
3 Aug after 30.6 °C 24 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
4 Aug after 27.7 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Jul 2018
After · 1 Aug 2018

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 · 599Every 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 Iringa fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 16 July 2018 and 25 July 2018: 10 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 12,620 hectares (126.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Iringa (12,695 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 27.6 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 39 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.