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Iringa fire, 31 July 2019 Iringa

Out · last detection 14 Aug 2019, 23:22 UTC

The fire started on 31 July 2019 in Iringa, Tanzania, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 26,840 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 10th largest in Iringa since 2016 (of 71 with a page). Number 3 in Tanzania in 2019, of 123.

Burnt area
26,840ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
15days
31 Jul 2019 – 14 Aug 2019
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
31 Jul
2019
Heat detections
794
in a single hotspot: 130 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Energy released
5.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

14 Aug 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 31 Jul14 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

311234567891011121314

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
42km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

75% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 12,901 ha in 2016, 3,189 ha in 2017, 11,303 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 20,251 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Iringa where it started
    27,016 ha reached on 30 Jul
    1.4 %

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)
31 Jul 27.4 °C 37 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
1 Aug 29.4 °C 34 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
2 Aug 28.8 °C 35 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
3 Aug 29.7 °C 27 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
4 Aug 30.2 °C 25 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
5 Aug 30.7 °C 26 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
6 Aug 30.9 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
7 Aug 30.7 °C 24 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
8 Aug 29.8 °C 29 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
9 Aug 29.5 °C 28 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
10 Aug 29.0 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
11 Aug 29.1 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
12 Aug 28.7 °C 22 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
13 Aug 28.3 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
14 Aug 28.8 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
15 Aug after 29.0 °C 21 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
16 Aug after 28.8 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
17 Aug after 28.1 °C 25 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
18 Aug after 29.4 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
19 Aug after 28.8 °C 20 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
20 Aug after 29.3 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
21 Aug after 28.7 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
22 Aug after 29.1 °C 28 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
23 Aug after 29.3 °C 26 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
24 Aug after 30.9 °C 25 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Jul 2019
After · 21 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 · 794Every 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 31 July 2019 and 14 August 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 26,840 hectares (268.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Iringa (27,016 ha, 1.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.9 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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
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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.