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Kibondo fire, 20 August 2025 Kibondo

Out · last detection 14 Sept 2025, 10:59 UTC

The fire started on 20 August 2025 in Kibondo, Tanzania, and satellites saw it burning for 28 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 28,520 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 2th largest in Kigoma since 2016 (of 101 with a page). Number 3 in Tanzania in 2025, of 161.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Kibondo · 2023Kibondo · 2021Kibondo · 2023Kibondo · 2026

Burnt area
28,520ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
28days
20 Aug 2025 – 16 Sept 2025
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
20 Aug
2025
Heat detections
858
in a single hotspot: 169 MW
Danger at start
33
High · FWI index
Average daily power
477MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Aug16 Sept
14 Sept 2025

How it evolved, day by day

20 Aug 2025 · 120 MW · 9 21 Aug 2025 · 12 MW · 3 22 Aug 2025 · 658 MW · 36 23 Aug 2025 · 679 MW · 46 24 Aug 2025 · 416 MW · 42 25 Aug 2025 · 14 MW · 4 26 Aug 2025 · 8 MW · 1 27 Aug 2025 · 159 MW · 26 28 Aug 2025 · 1,023 MW · 59 29 Aug 2025 · 552 MW · 34 30 Aug 2025 · 1,363 MW · 101 31 Aug 2025 · 863 MW · 72 1 Sept 2025 · 2,118 MW · 75 2 Sept 2025 · 1,049 MW · 72 3 Sept 2025 · 761 MW · 87 4 Sept 2025 · 167 MW · 26 5 Sept 2025 · 12 MW · 13 6 Sept 2025 · 116 MW · 20 7 Sept 2025 · 279 MW · 51 8 Sept 2025 · 949 MW · 56 9 Sept 2025 · 60 MW · 10 12 Sept 2025 · 29 MW · 5 13 Sept 2025 · 17 MW · 6 14 Sept 2025 · 26 MW · 4
20 Aug 24 Aug 28 Aug 1 Sept 5 Sept 9 Sept

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
39km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

67% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,964 ha in 2016, 2,066 ha in 2017, 3,068 ha in 2018, 2,078 ha in 2019, 1,840 ha in 2020, 4,820 ha in 2021, 1 ha in 2022, 6,611 ha in 2023, 3,683 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 19,022 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 18% of the area of London (285 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Kibondo where it started
    28,709 ha reached on 20 Aug
    2.1 %

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.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
20 Aug 28.9 °C 27 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
21 Aug 29.2 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
22 Aug 29.4 °C 21 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
23 Aug 28.7 °C 25 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
24 Aug 28.9 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
25 Aug 30.3 °C 31 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
26 Aug 28.8 °C 34 % 36 km/h 0.1 mm High 33
27 Aug 29.1 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
28 Aug 30.0 °C 26 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
29 Aug 30.3 °C 22 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
30 Aug 29.0 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
31 Aug 28.8 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
1 Sept 29.9 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
2 Sept 30.1 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
3 Sept 29.2 °C 26 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
4 Sept 30.1 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
5 Sept 30.5 °C 26 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
6 Sept 30.7 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
7 Sept 31.2 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
8 Sept 29.8 °C 28 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
9 Sept 31.6 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
10 Sept 29.2 °C 35 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
11 Sept 30.2 °C 26 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
12 Sept 30.7 °C 26 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
13 Sept 29.9 °C 27 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
14 Sept 31.7 °C 26 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
15 Sept 31.5 °C 24 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
16 Sept 28.7 °C 41 % 19 km/h 0.5 mm High 29
17 Sept after 29.6 °C 38 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
18 Sept after 30.6 °C 32 % 33 km/h 0.1 mm High 31
19 Sept after 31.0 °C 35 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
20 Sept after 30.3 °C 24 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
21 Sept after 29.9 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
22 Sept after 29.8 °C 30 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
23 Sept after 30.9 °C 31 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
24 Sept after 30.1 °C 30 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
25 Sept after 33.1 °C 22 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
26 Sept after 31.1 °C 29 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 35

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Aug 2025
After · 23 Sept 2025

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 · Copernicus

On 4 September 2025 the air beside the fire reached 90 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 58: 3.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak90 µg/m³
Days over the guideline23 days
PM1093 µg/m³
Optical depth1.49
2526272829303112345678910111213141516171819
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 858Every 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?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 20 August 2025 to 16 September 2025 (28 days). The perimeter dates it from 27 August 2025 to 16 September 2025.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 28,520 hectares (285.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kibondo (28,709 ha, 2.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.7 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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 · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Start date: 27 August 2025 → 20 August 2025.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 27 August 2025 to 16 September 2025. 858 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.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.