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Mbarali fire, September 2022 Mbarali

Out · last detection 6 Oct 2022, 22:38 UTC

The fire started on 30 September 2022 in Mbarali, Tanzania, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,079 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 77th largest in Mbeya since 2016 (of 147 with a page). Number 38 in Tanzania in 2022, of 71.

Burnt area
4,079ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
30 Sept 2022 – 6 Oct 2022
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
30 Sept
2022
Heat detections
127
in a single hotspot: 36 MW
Danger at start
46
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

6 Oct 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Sept6 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

3012456

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
41km/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

82% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 558 ha in 2016, 2,188 ha in 2017, 194 ha in 2018, 870 ha in 2019, 453 ha in 2020, 225 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,326 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mbarali where it started
    4,102 ha reached on 30 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)
30 Sept 31.2 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
1 Oct 32.1 °C 24 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
2 Oct 32.4 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
3 Oct 32.0 °C 18 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
4 Oct 32.8 °C 17 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
5 Oct 32.4 °C 18 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
6 Oct 32.4 °C 19 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
7 Oct after 31.8 °C 16 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
8 Oct after 32.5 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
9 Oct after 31.3 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
10 Oct after 32.4 °C 20 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
11 Oct after 32.6 °C 17 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
12 Oct after 31.3 °C 22 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
13 Oct after 32.7 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
14 Oct after 32.2 °C 18 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
15 Oct after 32.1 °C 16 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
16 Oct after 33.0 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Sept 2022
After · 13 Oct 2022

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 · 127Every 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 30 September 2022 and 6 October 2022: 7 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 4,079 hectares (40.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mbarali (4,102 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.8 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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.