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Iringa fire, 5 September 2020 Iringa

Out · last detection 8 Sept 2020, 11:46 UTC

The fire started on 5 September 2020 in Iringa, Tanzania, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,253 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 65th largest in Iringa since 2016 (of 71 with a page). Number 166 in Tanzania in 2020, of 187.

Burnt area
3,253ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
5 Sept 2020 – 7 Sept 2020
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
5 Sept
2020
Heat detections
92
in a single hotspot: 100 MW
Danger at start
33
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

8 Sept 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Sept7 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

5678

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

The weather it burned in

29°high
34km/h · peak gust
32%lowest humidity

It had gone 56 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

98% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,476 ha in 2016, 2,068 ha in 2017, 2,401 ha in 2018, 2,653 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,181 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Iringa where it started
    3,271 ha reached on 5 Sept
    0.2 %

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)
5 Sept 29.1 °C 34 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
6 Sept 27.7 °C 35 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
7 Sept 27.7 °C 32 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
8 Sept after 27.0 °C 34 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
9 Sept after 26.9 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
10 Sept after 27.8 °C 34 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
11 Sept after 28.4 °C 34 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
12 Sept after 29.3 °C 31 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
13 Sept after 30.1 °C 31 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
14 Sept after 30.9 °C 28 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
15 Sept after 29.6 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
16 Sept after 30.9 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
17 Sept after 30.7 °C 28 % 39 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.

Before · 29 Aug 2020
After · 14 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 · 92Every 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 5 September 2020 and 7 September 2020: 3 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 3,253 hectares (32.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Iringa (3,271 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.1 °C, humidity dropped to 32 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, class 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.