How long did the Mbarali fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 30 August 2016 to 13 September 2016 (15 days). The perimeter dates it from 2 September 2016 to 10 September 2016.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,705 hectares (37.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Mbarali (3,727 ha, 0.3 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 30.7 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 39 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.

TZ · Tanzania · 2016-08-30 → 2016-09-13

Mbarali fire, 30 August 2016 Mbarali

Out · last detection 13 Sept 2016, 11:45 UTC

The fire started on 30 August 2016 in Mbarali, Tanzania, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,705 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 96th largest in Mbeya since 2016 (of 148 with a page). Number 111 in Tanzania in 2016, of 160.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Mbarali · 2025 Mbarali · 2026 Mbarali · 2016 Mbarali · 2021

Burnt area: 3,705ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 15days; 30 Aug 2016 – 13 Sept 2016
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 30 Aug; 2016
Heat detections: 133; in a single hotspot: 46 MW
Danger at start: 40; Very high · FWI index
Average daily power: 92MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Aug13 Sept

Play back 13 Sept 2016

How it evolved, day by day

31 Aug 2 Sept 4 Sept 6 Sept 9 Sept 13 Sept

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

The weather it burned in

31°high

39km/h · peak gust

21%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.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 2.3% of the area of London (37 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

Mbarali where it started

3,727 ha reached on 31 Aug

0.3 %

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.

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	Danger (FWI)
2 Sept	27.9 °C	26 %	39 km/h	Very high 40
3 Sept	27.9 °C	25 %	31 km/h	High 37
4 Sept	28.9 °C	29 %	30 km/h	High 35
5 Sept	29.3 °C	28 %	28 km/h	High 36
6 Sept	29.6 °C	29 %	29 km/h	High 33
7 Sept	29.8 °C	30 %	31 km/h	High 37
8 Sept	30.7 °C	31 %	27 km/h	High 34
9 Sept	30.4 °C	21 %	31 km/h	High 35
10 Sept	30.1 °C	23 %	34 km/h	Very high 38
11 Sept	30.1 °C	25 %	41 km/h	Very high 44
12 Sept	30.7 °C	23 %	41 km/h	Very high 44
13 Sept	30.9 °C	22 %	28 km/h	Very high 39
14 Sept after	30.7 °C	25 %	39 km/h	Very high 47
15 Sept after	31.2 °C	25 %	28 km/h	Very high 40
16 Sept after	31.3 °C	27 %	28 km/h	Very high 40
17 Sept after	31.2 °C	29 %	26 km/h	Very high 38
18 Sept after	31.5 °C	30 %	30 km/h	Very high 42
19 Sept after	29.6 °C	23 %	41 km/h	Very high 45
20 Sept after	29.0 °C	27 %	48 km/h	Very high 49

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 23 Aug 2016

After · 20 Sept 2016

Before After

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 · 133Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Tanzania ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Mbarali fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 30 August 2016 to 13 September 2016 (15 days). The perimeter dates it from 2 September 2016 to 10 September 2016.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,705 hectares (37.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Mbarali (3,727 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 30.7 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 39 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

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What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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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.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 2 September 2016 to 10 September 2016. 133 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.

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.

Where it burned