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Iringa fire, 28 August 2023 Iringa

Out · last detection 7 Sept 2023, 11:34 UTC

The fire started on 28 August 2023 in Iringa, Tanzania, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,250 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 23th largest in Iringa since 2016 (of 71 with a page). Number 6 in Tanzania in 2023, of 44.

Burnt area
6,250ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
28 Aug 2023 – 6 Sept 2023
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
28 Aug
2023
Heat detections
301
in a single hotspot: 217 MW
Danger at start
45
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

7 Sept 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Aug6 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

282930311234567

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
42km/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

100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,523 ha in 2016, 5,430 ha in 2018, 2,923 ha in 2019, 3,204 ha in 2020, 1,746 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,269 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Iringa where it started
    6,288 ha reached on 27 Aug
    0.3 %

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)
28 Aug 28.9 °C 25 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
29 Aug 28.8 °C 24 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
30 Aug 29.6 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
31 Aug 29.8 °C 26 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
1 Sept 30.0 °C 26 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
2 Sept 29.3 °C 27 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
3 Sept 29.1 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
4 Sept 29.7 °C 28 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
5 Sept 29.6 °C 29 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
6 Sept 31.7 °C 28 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
7 Sept after 31.2 °C 29 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
8 Sept after 30.3 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
9 Sept after 29.6 °C 24 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
10 Sept after 29.6 °C 27 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
11 Sept after 31.3 °C 29 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
12 Sept after 31.7 °C 32 % 31 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 41
13 Sept after 29.4 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
14 Sept after 30.0 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 41
15 Sept after 30.7 °C 20 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
16 Sept after 31.2 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 Aug 2023
After · 13 Sept 2023

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 · 301Every 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 28 August 2023 and 6 September 2023: 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 6,250 hectares (62.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Iringa (6,288 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.7 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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.