Kilwa fire, October 2026 Kilwa, Rufiji
Satellites first detected fire on 20 October 2026 in Kilwa, Tanzania. It has been active for 10 days, with 316 heat detections and an area with fire of about 4,046 hectares rebuilt from them, spread across 2 municipalities.
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GWIS (Copernicus) has not yet published the perimeter of this fire. It rebuilds it from hotspots, which can take several days, and it does not always arrive. For now the area is the one rebuilt from heat detections (about 14 hectares per pixel). If the perimeter arrives, this page picks it up on its own and keeps the same address.
Is it still active?
No detections since 30 Oct 2026, 11:21 UTC. That usually means no flame is visible from space any more, although hotspots may remain. Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
- Area with fire
- ≈ 4,046ha
- rebuilt from hotspots, no official perimeter yet
- Duration
- 10days
- 20 Oct 2026 – 29 Oct 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 20 Oct
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 316
- in a single hotspot: 114 MW
- Danger at start
- 6
- Low · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 327MW
- 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 one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.1 mm on 31 Oct.
What happened to each town
-
Kilwa where it started3,584 ha reached on 20 Oct0.2 %
-
462 ha reached on 20 Oct0.0 %
Area with fire inside each municipality, rebuilt from heat detections (about 14 hectares per VIIRS pixel). An estimate until the official perimeter arrives. 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) · forecast models, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20 Oct | 30.9 °C | 52 % | 31 km/h | 0.9 mm | Low 6 |
| 21 Oct | 30.6 °C | 54 % | 37 km/h | 0.5 mm | Low 9 |
| 22 Oct | 29.9 °C | 59 % | 31 km/h | 0.3 mm | Low 8 |
| 23 Oct | 32.2 °C | 49 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 24 Oct | 31.1 °C | 57 % | 38 km/h | 1.4 mm | Low 6 |
| 25 Oct | 30.8 °C | 51 % | 40 km/h | 1.5 mm | Low 7 |
| 26 Oct | 28.5 °C | 67 % | 39 km/h | 4.0 mm | Very low 2 |
| 27 Oct | 29.3 °C | 59 % | 35 km/h | 0.7 mm | Very low 5 |
| 28 Oct | 29.5 °C | 61 % | 31 km/h | 0.7 mm | Low 6 |
| 29 Oct | 31.2 °C | 53 % | 31 km/h | 0.1 mm | Low 10 |
| 30 Oct after | 32.0 °C | 47 % | 35 km/h | 0.4 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 31 Oct after | 29.0 °C | 68 % | 40 km/h | 3.1 mm | Very low 3 |
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 16 October 2026 the air beside the fire reached 18 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO 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 · 316Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Kilwa fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite, it burned from 20 October 2026 to 29 October 2026 (10 days between the first and the last detection). There is no perimeter yet to date it.
- How much area did it burn?
- There is no perimeter yet. Heat detections rebuild about 4,046 hectares with fire (40.5 km²), a rough figure; GWIS will give its own when it publishes the perimeter, which can take several days.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Kilwa (3,584 ha, 0.2 %); Rufiji (462 ha, 0.0 %).
- Is the Kilwa fire still active?
- No fire detections since 30 Oct 2026, 11:21 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 32.2 °C, humidity dropped to 49 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 12, class Moderate.
- 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 · 6 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 24 October 2026 → 29 October 2026.
- Start date: 19 October 2026 → 20 October 2026.
- Area: ≈ 4,872 → ≈ 4,032 ha.
- Start date: 18 October 2026 → 19 October 2026.
- Area: ≈ 4,032 → ≈ 4,872 ha.
- Start date: 15 October 2026 → 18 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
- No perimeter yet: the area (≈ 4,046 ha) is estimated by counting VIIRS pixels with fire, about 14 ha each.
- Dates of the first and last VIIRS detection of the cluster. 316 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Weather: ECMWF IFS model, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives.
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.