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Manyoni fire, 8 August 2018 Manyoni

Out · last detection 19 Aug 2018, 11:27 UTC

The fire started on 8 August 2018 in Manyoni, Tanzania, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,500 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 21th largest in Singida since 2016 (of 124 with a page). Number 14 in Tanzania in 2018, of 72.

Burnt area
7,500ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
11days
8 Aug 2018 – 18 Aug 2018
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
8 Aug
2018
Heat detections
290
in a single hotspot: 154 MW
Danger at start
45
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

19 Aug 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Aug18 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

8910111213141516171819

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
52km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

52% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,927 ha in 2016, 2,947 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,876 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Manyoni where it started
    7,557 ha reached on 8 Aug
    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)
8 Aug 30.1 °C 17 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
9 Aug 30.1 °C 17 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
10 Aug 29.2 °C 20 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
11 Aug 27.6 °C 23 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
12 Aug 26.8 °C 29 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
13 Aug 26.5 °C 28 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
14 Aug 27.1 °C 25 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
15 Aug 27.0 °C 30 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
16 Aug 26.8 °C 25 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
17 Aug 28.1 °C 27 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
18 Aug 28.6 °C 25 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
19 Aug after 27.8 °C 28 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
20 Aug after 27.8 °C 30 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
21 Aug after 27.6 °C 29 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
22 Aug after 29.3 °C 31 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
23 Aug after 29.5 °C 31 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
24 Aug after 28.1 °C 31 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
25 Aug after 28.3 °C 25 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
26 Aug after 27.3 °C 33 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
27 Aug after 29.7 °C 29 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
28 Aug after 29.7 °C 27 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Aug 2018
After · 25 Aug 2018

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 · 290Every 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 8 August 2018 and 18 August 2018: 11 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 7,500 hectares (75.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Manyoni (7,557 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.1 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 52 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.