Iringa fire, 15 September 2026 Iringa, Mbarali
The fire started on 15 September 2026 in Iringa, Tanzania, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 23,926 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 11th largest in Iringa since 2016 (of 71 with a page). Number 4 in Tanzania in 2026, of 200.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 23,926ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 19days
- 15 Sept 2026 – 3 Oct 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 15 Sept
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 516
- in a single hotspot: 197 MW
- Danger at start
- 32
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 207MW
- 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 59 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 7 Oct.
This area had burned before
93% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 12,338 ha in 2016, 7,118 ha in 2017, 3,645 ha in 2018, 9,127 ha in 2019, 2,788 ha in 2020, 12,579 ha in 2021, 180 ha in 2022, 6,928 ha in 2023, 10,704 ha in 2024, 1,804 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 22,294 ha that had burned before.
- 10,660 ha Mbarali fire, September 2021 140,758 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 8,802 ha Iringa fire, August 2016 138,240 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 6,155 ha Mbarali fire, July 2023 7,702 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,668 ha Mbarali fire, June 2019 7,231 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,361 ha Mbarali fire, July 2017 6,665 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,815 ha Iringa fire, September 2024 5,397 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,566 ha Mbarali fire, September 2024 4,790 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,197 ha Iringa fire, October 2016 16,584 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 started12,058 ha reached on 15 Sept0.6 %
-
12,012 ha reached on 15 Sept0.8 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 Sept | 29.0 °C | 33 % | 36 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 32 |
| 16 Sept | 29.5 °C | 26 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 17 Sept | 28.7 °C | 29 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 18 Sept | 28.8 °C | 31 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 19 Sept | 29.0 °C | 30 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 20 Sept | 31.1 °C | 21 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 21 Sept | 31.3 °C | 24 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 22 Sept | 31.3 °C | 26 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 23 Sept | 31.6 °C | 24 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 24 Sept | 31.3 °C | 27 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 25 Sept | 31.4 °C | 29 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 26 Sept | 31.2 °C | 29 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 27 Sept | 30.5 °C | 27 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 28 Sept | 31.2 °C | 27 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 29 Sept | 32.2 °C | 23 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 30 Sept | 30.6 °C | 25 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 1 Oct | 30.7 °C | 24 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 2 Oct | 31.3 °C | 26 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 3 Oct | 32.3 °C | 20 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 4 Oct after | 31.4 °C | 24 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 5 Oct after | 31.3 °C | 25 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 6 Oct after | 32.4 °C | 25 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 7 Oct after | 32.1 °C | 29 % | 34 km/h | 1.1 mm | High 30 |
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 25 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 55 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 25: 1.7 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 · 516Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 140,758 haMbarali4 September 2021 · 45 days · 5 km away
- 138,240 haIringaAugust 2016 · 37 days · 19 km away
- 113,445 haIringaSeptember 2018 · 35 days · 28 km away
- 42,802 haIringa28 July 2023 · 43 days · 33 km away
- 54,511 haIringa28 July 2024 · 22 days · 35 km away
- 97,386 haIringa7 July 2019 · 26 days · 36 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Iringa fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 15 September 2026 and 3 October 2026: 19 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 23,926 hectares (239.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Iringa (12,058 ha, 0.6 %); Mbarali (12,012 ha, 0.8 %).
- Is the Iringa fire still active?
- No fire detections since 3 Oct 2026, 11:08 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 32.3 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›
Satellite cross-check
History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 516 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.