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TZ · Tanzania · –

Kilombero fire, 11 October 2025 Kilombero

Out · last detection 19 Nov 2025, 23:07 UTC

The fire started on 11 October 2025 in Kilombero, Tanzania, and satellites saw it burning for 40 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 25,734 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

Number 5 in Tanzania in 2025, of 138.

GWIS near-real-time perimeter, from the layer that changed in August 2025: this fire is not compared with fires from earlier years, because since then the GWIS layer gives more and larger perimeters.

Burnt area
25,734ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
40days
11 Oct 2025 – 19 Nov 2025
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
11 Oct
2025
Heat detections
1,210
in a single hotspot: 254 MW
Danger at start
38
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
540MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Oct19 Nov
19 Nov 2025

How it evolved, day by day

11 Oct 2025 · 65 MW · 8 13 Oct 2025 · 3 MW · 4 14 Oct 2025 · 10 MW · 4 15 Oct 2025 · 110 MW · 9 16 Oct 2025 · 82 MW · 12 17 Oct 2025 · 26 MW · 6 18 Oct 2025 · 100 MW · 13 19 Oct 2025 · 430 MW · 18 20 Oct 2025 · 676 MW · 30 21 Oct 2025 · 1,208 MW · 42 22 Oct 2025 · 120 MW · 15 23 Oct 2025 · 564 MW · 38 24 Oct 2025 · 307 MW · 40 25 Oct 2025 · 1,824 MW · 133 26 Oct 2025 · 2,061 MW · 165 28 Oct 2025 · 1,014 MW · 44 29 Oct 2025 · 416 MW · 58 30 Oct 2025 · 1,172 MW · 74 31 Oct 2025 · 952 MW · 60 1 Nov 2025 · 2,318 MW · 53 2 Nov 2025 · 136 MW · 15 3 Nov 2025 · 277 MW · 34 5 Nov 2025 · 1,031 MW · 60 6 Nov 2025 · 821 MW · 46 8 Nov 2025 · 77 MW · 10 10 Nov 2025 · 949 MW · 57 11 Nov 2025 · 285 MW · 28 12 Nov 2025 · 636 MW · 35 13 Nov 2025 · 21 MW · 5 14 Nov 2025 · 10 MW · 2 15 Nov 2025 · 24 MW · 3 16 Nov 2025 · 136 MW · 18 17 Nov 2025 · 490 MW · 34 18 Nov 2025 · 373 MW · 24 19 Nov 2025 · 185 MW · 13
11 Oct 19 Oct 26 Oct 1 Nov 13 Nov

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
43km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 14.3 mm on 21 Nov.

This area had burned before

74% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,777 ha in 2016, 6,233 ha in 2018, 630 ha in 2019, 2,998 ha in 2020, 7,305 ha in 2021, 3,945 ha in 2022, 4,305 ha in 2023, 8,065 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 18,932 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 16% of the area of London (257 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. Kilombero where it started
    26,630 ha reached on 11 Oct
    2.0 %

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 area21 ha
Residents≈ 3,900

Inside the perimeter there were about 21 hectares of built-up land and about 3,900 residents (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)
11 Oct 33.4 °C 26 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
12 Oct 31.7 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
13 Oct 31.7 °C 31 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
14 Oct 30.2 °C 42 % 30 km/h 0.3 mm High 34
15 Oct 31.3 °C 36 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
16 Oct 32.2 °C 33 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
17 Oct 31.7 °C 35 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
18 Oct 31.5 °C 35 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
19 Oct 32.4 °C 34 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
20 Oct 31.5 °C 35 % 31 km/h 0.2 mm High 36
21 Oct 33.5 °C 34 % 31 km/h 0.1 mm High 37
22 Oct 33.0 °C 38 % 34 km/h 0.3 mm High 35
23 Oct 31.6 °C 40 % 32 km/h 1.2 mm Moderate 20
24 Oct 33.1 °C 37 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
25 Oct 34.5 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
26 Oct 35.5 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
27 Oct 36.7 °C 27 % 43 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 40
28 Oct 35.0 °C 29 % 30 km/h 1.0 mm High 27
29 Oct 33.3 °C 33 % 30 km/h 0.2 mm High 32
30 Oct 33.4 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
31 Oct 33.9 °C 30 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
1 Nov 34.3 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
2 Nov 33.0 °C 30 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
3 Nov 33.1 °C 31 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
4 Nov 32.7 °C 40 % 33 km/h 0.5 mm High 36
5 Nov 34.5 °C 31 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
6 Nov 36.0 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.1 mm High 37
7 Nov 35.0 °C 31 % 37 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 39
8 Nov 35.8 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.9 mm High 32
9 Nov 33.4 °C 36 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
10 Nov 35.6 °C 30 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
11 Nov 35.9 °C 26 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
12 Nov 34.6 °C 37 % 35 km/h 1.1 mm High 27
13 Nov 33.8 °C 39 % 39 km/h 2.6 mm High 25
14 Nov 31.0 °C 45 % 30 km/h 2.1 mm Very low 4
15 Nov 34.7 °C 33 % 31 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 17
16 Nov 35.1 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.1 mm High 32
17 Nov 35.4 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
18 Nov 36.2 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
19 Nov 36.6 °C 24 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
20 Nov after 34.6 °C 32 % 31 km/h 0.9 mm High 36
21 Nov after 28.3 °C 58 % 26 km/h 14.3 mm Very low 3

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Oct 2025
After · 26 Nov 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 15 November 2025 the air beside the fire reached 70 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 41: 2.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak70 µg/m³
Days over the guideline19 days
PM1072 µg/m³
Optical depth0.57
16 Oct23 Oct30 Oct6 Nov13 Nov
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 · 1,210Every 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 Kilombero fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 11 October 2025 to 19 November 2025 (40 days). The perimeter dates it from 18 October 2025 to 13 November 2025.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 25,734 hectares (257.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kilombero (26,630 ha, 2.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.7 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 43 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 · Emergency number and official warnings

Satellite cross-check

History of this page · 3 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Area: 26,430 → 25,734 ha.
  2. Last day with fire: 13 November 2025 → 19 November 2025.
  3. Start date: 18 October 2025 → 11 October 2025.

RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

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; 4 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 18 October 2025 to 13 November 2025. 1,210 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.