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Iringa fire, 30 August 2020 Iringa

Out · last detection 18 Sept 2020, 11:58 UTC

The fire started on 30 August 2020 in Iringa, Tanzania, and satellites saw it burning for 20 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 16,104 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 15th largest in Iringa since 2016 (of 71 with a page). Number 6 in Tanzania in 2020, of 187.

Burnt area
16,104ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
20days
30 Aug 2020 – 18 Sept 2020
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
30 Aug
2020
Heat detections
476
in a single hotspot: 206 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Energy released
3.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

18 Sept 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Aug18 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

3031123456789101112131415161718

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
37km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 50 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

96% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 14,218 ha in 2016, 162 ha in 2017, 10,124 ha in 2018, 10,092 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 15,518 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Iringa where it started
    16,209 ha reached on 29 Aug
    0.9 %

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)
30 Aug 30.0 °C 29 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
31 Aug 30.4 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
1 Sept 30.0 °C 21 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
2 Sept 30.2 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
3 Sept 28.2 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
4 Sept 30.3 °C 32 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
5 Sept 29.9 °C 30 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
6 Sept 28.1 °C 32 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
7 Sept 28.3 °C 29 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
8 Sept 27.7 °C 32 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
9 Sept 27.7 °C 28 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
10 Sept 28.4 °C 33 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
11 Sept 28.8 °C 32 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
12 Sept 29.5 °C 30 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
13 Sept 30.5 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
14 Sept 31.2 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
15 Sept 30.1 °C 32 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
16 Sept 30.9 °C 26 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
17 Sept 30.9 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
18 Sept 30.0 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
19 Sept after 30.0 °C 29 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
20 Sept after 29.8 °C 34 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
21 Sept after 30.0 °C 34 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
22 Sept after 31.1 °C 33 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
23 Sept after 30.1 °C 33 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
24 Sept after 29.5 °C 31 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
25 Sept after 30.3 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
26 Sept after 31.4 °C 34 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
27 Sept after 31.9 °C 33 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
28 Sept after 30.6 °C 39 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 35

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Aug 2020
After · 25 Sept 2020

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 · 476Every 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 30 August 2020 and 18 September 2020: 20 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 16,104 hectares (161.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Iringa (16,209 ha, 0.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.2 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 37 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.