Iringa fire, 29 July 2024 Iringa, Chunya
The fire started on 29 July 2024 in Iringa, Tanzania, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,303 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 38th largest in Iringa since 2016 (of 71 with a page). Number 29 in Tanzania in 2024, of 70.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Chunya · 2016Iringa · 2019Iringa · 2018Iringa · 2017
- Burnt area
- 4,303ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 3days
- 29 Jul 2024 – 31 Jul 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 29 Jul
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 122
- in a single hotspot: 97 MW
- Danger at start
- 34
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 301MW
- 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 more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
99% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,503 ha in 2016, 2,431 ha in 2017, 1,587 ha in 2018, 2,467 ha in 2019, 2,642 ha in 2020, 1,023 ha in 2021, 1,245 ha in 2022, 2,064 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,267 ha that had burned before.
- 2,503 ha Chunya fire, July 2016 32,137 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,584 ha Iringa fire, July 2019 97,386 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,580 ha Iringa fire, September 2018 113,445 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,452 ha Iringa fire, August 2017 39,206 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,426 ha Iringa fire, October 2020 5,373 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,328 ha Iringa fire, August 2023 4,690 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,215 ha Chunya fire, October 2020 3,346 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 979 ha Chunya fire, July 2017 12,300 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 started2,781 ha reached on 29 Jul0.2 %
-
1,549 ha reached on 31 Jul0.1 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 29 Jul | 28.7 °C | 26 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 30 Jul | 29.4 °C | 22 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 31 Jul | 27.7 °C | 21 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 1 Aug after | 25.8 °C | 30 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 2 Aug after | 25.5 °C | 31 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 3 Aug after | 26.7 °C | 29 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 4 Aug after | 27.5 °C | 20 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 5 Aug after | 28.6 °C | 22 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 6 Aug after | 27.4 °C | 23 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 7 Aug after | 27.8 °C | 29 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 8 Aug after | 27.5 °C | 31 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 9 Aug after | 27.1 °C | 34 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 10 Aug after | 27.5 °C | 32 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
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.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 29 July 2024 the air beside the fire reached 77 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 52: 3.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)
Detections table · 122Every 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 29 July 2024 and 31 July 2024: 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 4,303 hectares (43.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Iringa (2,781 ha, 0.2 %); Chunya (1,549 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 29.4 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % 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
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. 122 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.