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Mbarali fire, 4 September 2021 Iringa, Mbarali

Out · last detection 19 Oct 2021, 22:38 UTC

The fire started on 4 September 2021 in Mbarali, Tanzania, and satellites saw it burning for 45 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 140,758 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

This page is probably a fire complex, not a single fire. GWIS merges into one perimeter the fires that touch over weeks, which in large burning seasons can join dozens of separate fires. The total area is reliable; the origin and dates refer to the whole complex.

Other fire pages in the same area and on the same dates:

It is the largest fire in Mbeya since 2016 (of 148 with a page). The largest in Tanzania in 2021, of 135.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Iringa · 2016Iringa · 2018Iringa · 2019Iringa · 2019

Burnt area
140,758ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
45days
4 Sept 2021 – 18 Oct 2021
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
4 Sept
2021
Heat detections
4,562
in a single hotspot: 188 MW
Danger at start
33
High · FWI index
Average daily power
697MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Sept18 Oct
19 Oct 2021

How it evolved, day by day

4 Sept 2021 · 384 MW · 46 5 Sept 2021 · 1,530 MW · 129 6 Sept 2021 · 839 MW · 114 7 Sept 2021 · 1,374 MW · 110 8 Sept 2021 · 437 MW · 70 9 Sept 2021 · 303 MW · 68 10 Sept 2021 · 359 MW · 154 11 Sept 2021 · 1,124 MW · 265 12 Sept 2021 · 1,793 MW · 216 13 Sept 2021 · 1,108 MW · 250 14 Sept 2021 · 1,402 MW · 188 15 Sept 2021 · 1,625 MW · 278 16 Sept 2021 · 733 MW · 193 17 Sept 2021 · 1,310 MW · 146 18 Sept 2021 · 2,191 MW · 150 19 Sept 2021 · 644 MW · 51 20 Sept 2021 · 143 MW · 26 21 Sept 2021 · 79 MW · 16 22 Sept 2021 · 119 MW · 24 23 Sept 2021 · 146 MW · 36 24 Sept 2021 · 905 MW · 83 25 Sept 2021 · 371 MW · 59 26 Sept 2021 · 472 MW · 88 27 Sept 2021 · 699 MW · 139 28 Sept 2021 · 651 MW · 88 29 Sept 2021 · 579 MW · 93 30 Sept 2021 · 188 MW · 56 1 Oct 2021 · 590 MW · 82 2 Oct 2021 · 472 MW · 113 3 Oct 2021 · 647 MW · 113 4 Oct 2021 · 692 MW · 148 5 Oct 2021 · 2,039 MW · 175 6 Oct 2021 · 2,084 MW · 259 7 Oct 2021 · 732 MW · 63 8 Oct 2021 · 570 MW · 38 9 Oct 2021 · 700 MW · 97 10 Oct 2021 · 507 MW · 57 11 Oct 2021 · 155 MW · 36 12 Oct 2021 · 517 MW · 84 13 Oct 2021 · 17 MW · 14 14 Oct 2021 · 205 MW · 33 15 Oct 2021 · 79 MW · 20 16 Oct 2021 · 224 MW · 53 17 Oct 2021 · 272 MW · 34 18 Oct 2021 · 52 MW · 6 19 Oct 2021 · 1 MW · 1
4 Sept 11 Sept 18 Sept 25 Sept 2 Oct 9 Oct 16 Oct

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
42km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

93% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 91,590 ha in 2016, 22,204 ha in 2017, 68,211 ha in 2018, 77,770 ha in 2019, 42,969 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 131,051 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 89% of the area of London (1,408 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

  1. Iringa
    133,512 ha reached on 5 Sept
    7.1 %
  2. Mbarali where it started
    8,138 ha reached on 4 Sept
    0.6 %

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.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020
Built-up area2.4 ha
Residents≈ 200

Inside the perimeter there were about 2.4 hectares of built-up land and about 200 residents (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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 30.0 °C 25 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
5 Sept 29.5 °C 28 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
6 Sept 30.0 °C 31 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
7 Sept 29.6 °C 33 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
8 Sept 31.2 °C 32 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
9 Sept 30.0 °C 29 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
10 Sept 27.9 °C 34 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
11 Sept 28.7 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
12 Sept 31.2 °C 26 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
13 Sept 29.3 °C 31 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
14 Sept 31.2 °C 30 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
15 Sept 30.7 °C 34 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
16 Sept 31.0 °C 37 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
17 Sept 33.1 °C 33 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
18 Sept 32.3 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
19 Sept 31.7 °C 26 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
20 Sept 31.1 °C 26 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
21 Sept 30.8 °C 31 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
22 Sept 31.3 °C 28 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
23 Sept 31.2 °C 23 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
24 Sept 30.5 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
25 Sept 31.7 °C 25 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
26 Sept 30.8 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
27 Sept 32.0 °C 26 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
28 Sept 32.5 °C 28 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
29 Sept 32.1 °C 33 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
30 Sept 33.3 °C 26 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
1 Oct 31.4 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
2 Oct 32.0 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
3 Oct 32.7 °C 30 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
4 Oct 31.2 °C 31 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
5 Oct 33.3 °C 16 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
6 Oct 31.2 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
7 Oct 33.8 °C 19 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
8 Oct 32.8 °C 27 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
9 Oct 33.2 °C 27 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
10 Oct 32.4 °C 30 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
11 Oct 32.6 °C 23 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
12 Oct 30.5 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 Oct 30.4 °C 30 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
14 Oct 31.7 °C 30 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
15 Oct 30.9 °C 34 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
16 Oct 31.4 °C 36 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
17 Oct 32.1 °C 33 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
18 Oct 30.9 °C 34 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
19 Oct after 30.7 °C 34 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
20 Oct after 30.7 °C 31 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
21 Oct after 32.1 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
22 Oct after 31.6 °C 31 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
23 Oct after 34.3 °C 26 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
24 Oct after 35.3 °C 24 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
25 Oct after 33.8 °C 26 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
26 Oct after 33.1 °C 27 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
27 Oct after 32.7 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
28 Oct after 32.9 °C 24 % 31 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 · 28 Aug 2021
After · 25 Oct 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 · 4,562Every 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 Mbarali fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 September 2021 and 18 October 2021: 45 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 140,758 hectares (1,407.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Iringa (133,512 ha, 7.1 %); Mbarali (8,138 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.8 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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

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.

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 7 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 4,562 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.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

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.