Iringa fire, 27 July 2023 Iringa, Chunya
The fire started on 27 July 2023 in Iringa, Tanzania, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,878 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 50th largest in Iringa since 2016 (of 71 with a page). Number 25 in Tanzania in 2023, of 44.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Iringa · 2021Iringa · 2019Chunya · 2017Iringa · 2017
- Burnt area
- 3,878ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 6days
- 27 Jul 2023 – 1 Aug 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 27 Jul
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 110
- in a single hotspot: 83 MW
- Danger at start
- 34
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 106MW
- detected power per day, on average
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 50 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
95% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,143 ha in 2016, 2,319 ha in 2017, 548 ha in 2018, 2,036 ha in 2019, 431 ha in 2020, 2,853 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,699 ha that had burned before.
- 2,853 ha Iringa fire, July 2021 7,792 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,036 ha Iringa fire, July 2019 97,386 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 395 ha Chunya fire, July 2017 12,300 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 171 ha Iringa fire, August 2017 39,206 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 76 ha Chunya fire, July 2016 32,137 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Iringa where it started3,679 ha reached on 25 Jul0.2 %
-
223 ha reached on 28 Jul0.0 %
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 Jul | 26.2 °C | 27 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 28 Jul | 27.1 °C | 31 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 29 Jul | 28.0 °C | 34 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 30 Jul | 29.9 °C | 28 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 31 Jul | 29.2 °C | 26 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 1 Aug | 27.9 °C | 25 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 2 Aug after | 25.3 °C | 35 % | 41 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 38 |
| 3 Aug after | 28.1 °C | 28 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 4 Aug after | 26.3 °C | 29 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 5 Aug after | 27.1 °C | 28 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 6 Aug after | 25.0 °C | 39 % | 37 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 33 |
| 7 Aug after | 25.5 °C | 36 % | 34 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 32 |
| 8 Aug after | 27.4 °C | 26 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 9 Aug after | 28.0 °C | 24 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 10 Aug after | 26.0 °C | 30 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 11 Aug after | 28.0 °C | 28 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
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.
Detections table · 110Every 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 Iringa fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 27 July 2023 and 1 August 2023: 6 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 3,878 hectares (38.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Iringa (3,679 ha, 0.2 %); Chunya (223 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 29.9 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 37 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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 110 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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.