Skip to content
worldfires
TZ · Tanzania · →

Kibondo fire, 11 June 2017 Kibondo

Out · last detection 16 Jun 2017, 12:11 UTC

The fire started on 11 June 2017 in Kibondo, Tanzania, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,323 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 47th largest in Kigoma since 2016 (of 101 with a page). Number 48 in Tanzania in 2017, of 104.

Burnt area
4,323ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
11 Jun 2017 – 16 Jun 2017
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
11 Jun
2017
Heat detections
122
in a single hotspot: 174 MW
Danger at start
29
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

16 Jun 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Jun16 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

111213141516

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
37km/h · peak gust
31%lowest humidity

It had gone 29 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

17% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 716 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Kibondo where it started
    4,353 ha reached on 11 Jun
    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)
11 Jun 29.2 °C 31 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
12 Jun 30.0 °C 33 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
13 Jun 30.4 °C 36 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
14 Jun 30.1 °C 41 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
15 Jun 30.8 °C 34 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
16 Jun 30.2 °C 35 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
17 Jun after 29.6 °C 40 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
18 Jun after 28.9 °C 38 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
19 Jun after 29.6 °C 34 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
20 Jun after 30.0 °C 35 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
21 Jun after 30.0 °C 32 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
22 Jun after 30.3 °C 33 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
23 Jun after 30.5 °C 37 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
24 Jun after 30.2 °C 32 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
25 Jun after 28.0 °C 41 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
26 Jun after 29.7 °C 34 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 30

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Jun 2017
After · 23 Jun 2017

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 · 122Every 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 Kibondo fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 11 June 2017 and 16 June 2017: 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 4,323 hectares (43.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kibondo (4,353 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.8 °C, humidity dropped to 31 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 29, 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
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.