Skip to content
worldfires
TZ · Tanzania · →

Manyoni fire, 4 September 2016 Manyoni

Out · last detection 13 Sept 2016, 11:46 UTC

The fire started on 4 September 2016 in Manyoni, Tanzania, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,066 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 123th largest in Singida since 2016 (of 124 with a page). Number 152 in Tanzania in 2016, of 160.

The power measured by the satellite is low (23.5 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
3,066ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
4 Sept 2016 – 13 Sept 2016
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
4 Sept
2016
Heat detections
92
in a single hotspot: 23 MW
Danger at start
46
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
465MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

13 Sept 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Sept13 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

45678910111213

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

The weather it burned in

30°high
55km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Manyoni where it started
    3,089 ha reached on 4 Sept
    0.1 %

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)
4 Sept 28.7 °C 28 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
5 Sept 28.4 °C 32 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
6 Sept 29.7 °C 30 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
7 Sept 29.3 °C 32 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
8 Sept 29.4 °C 33 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
9 Sept 29.3 °C 23 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
10 Sept 29.1 °C 23 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
11 Sept 29.4 °C 24 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
12 Sept 29.5 °C 25 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
13 Sept 30.4 °C 23 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
14 Sept after 30.4 °C 25 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
15 Sept after 30.3 °C 26 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
16 Sept after 31.0 °C 27 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
17 Sept after 30.4 °C 31 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
18 Sept after 30.3 °C 33 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
19 Sept after 29.2 °C 23 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
20 Sept after 28.3 °C 26 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
21 Sept after 28.4 °C 24 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
22 Sept after 29.9 °C 26 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
23 Sept after 30.2 °C 31 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Aug 2016
After · 20 Sept 2016

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 · 92Every 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 Manyoni fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 September 2016 and 13 September 2016: 10 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 3,066 hectares (30.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Manyoni (3,089 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.4 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, class Extreme.
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.