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Manyoni fire, 5 September 2021 Manyoni

Out · last detection 15 Sept 2021, 10:31 UTC

The fire started on 5 September 2021 in Manyoni, Tanzania, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,345 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 17th largest in Singida since 2016 (of 124 with a page). Number 16 in Tanzania in 2021, of 135.

Burnt area
8,345ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
11days
5 Sept 2021 – 15 Sept 2021
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
5 Sept
2021
Heat detections
233
in a single hotspot: 82 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

15 Sept 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Sept15 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

56789101112131415

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

The weather it burned in

29°high
50km/h · peak gust
29%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

74% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,207 ha in 2016, 565 ha in 2017, 975 ha in 2018, 3,561 ha in 2019, 2,411 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,179 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Manyoni where it started
    8,408 ha reached on 5 Sept
    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)
5 Sept 28.0 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
6 Sept 29.2 °C 29 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
7 Sept 29.2 °C 29 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
8 Sept 29.2 °C 34 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
9 Sept 27.7 °C 35 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
10 Sept 26.7 °C 36 % 49 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 41
11 Sept 27.1 °C 29 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
12 Sept 29.2 °C 29 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 Sept 28.3 °C 31 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
14 Sept 28.8 °C 34 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
15 Sept 29.0 °C 36 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
16 Sept after 29.7 °C 39 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
17 Sept after 31.1 °C 36 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
18 Sept after 31.1 °C 27 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
19 Sept after 29.6 °C 28 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
20 Sept after 30.1 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
21 Sept after 29.8 °C 29 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
22 Sept after 29.6 °C 29 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
23 Sept after 28.9 °C 27 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
24 Sept after 28.4 °C 27 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
25 Sept after 29.8 °C 29 % 40 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 · 29 Aug 2021
After · 22 Sept 2021

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 · 233Every 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 5 September 2021 and 15 September 2021: 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 8,345 hectares (83.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Manyoni (8,408 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.2 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, 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

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.