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Iringa fire, 16 September 2023 Iringa

Out · last detection 25 Sept 2023, 23:41 UTC

The fire started on 16 September 2023 in Iringa, Tanzania, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,819 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 33th largest in Iringa since 2016 (of 71 with a page). Number 15 in Tanzania in 2023, of 44.

Burnt area
4,819ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
16 Sept 2023 – 24 Sept 2023
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
16 Sept
2023
Heat detections
189
in a single hotspot: 32 MW
Danger at start
33
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

25 Sept 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Sept24 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

16171819202122232425

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

The weather it burned in

28°high
33km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

98% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,258 ha in 2016, 1,081 ha in 2017, 1,579 ha in 2018, 2,613 ha in 2019, 588 ha in 2020, 2,474 ha in 2021, 489 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,714 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Iringa where it started
    4,851 ha reached on 16 Sept
    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)
16 Sept 27.5 °C 24 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
17 Sept 28.4 °C 24 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
18 Sept 27.8 °C 25 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
19 Sept 26.4 °C 27 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
20 Sept 27.9 °C 24 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
21 Sept 28.4 °C 23 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
22 Sept 26.2 °C 26 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
23 Sept 27.6 °C 22 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
24 Sept 26.8 °C 23 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
25 Sept after 27.9 °C 23 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
26 Sept after 28.3 °C 24 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
27 Sept after 27.9 °C 31 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
28 Sept after 26.9 °C 31 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
29 Sept after 27.4 °C 24 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
30 Sept after 27.9 °C 26 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
1 Oct after 28.8 °C 22 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
2 Oct after 29.7 °C 11 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
3 Oct after 26.7 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
4 Oct after 26.3 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 37

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Sept 2023
After · 1 Oct 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 · 189Every 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 16 September 2023 and 24 September 2023: 9 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 4,819 hectares (48.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Iringa (4,851 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 28.4 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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.