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Mbarali fire, August 2025 Mbarali

Out · last detection 13 Sept 2025, 22:22 UTC

The fire started on 29 August 2025 in Mbarali, Tanzania, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,766 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 14th largest in Mbeya since 2016 (of 147 with a page). Number 18 in Tanzania in 2025, of 161.

Burnt area
9,766ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
16days
29 Aug 2025 – 13 Sept 2025
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
29 Aug
2025
Heat detections
268
in a single hotspot: 87 MW
Danger at start
49
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
3.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

13 Sept 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Aug13 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

2930311234567810111213

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
41km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

92% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,200 ha in 2016, 4,292 ha in 2017, 2,865 ha in 2018, 2,130 ha in 2019, 1,539 ha in 2020, 2,101 ha in 2021, 909 ha in 2022, 2,610 ha in 2023, 2,533 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 8,967 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mbarali where it started
    9,823 ha reached on 29 Aug
    0.7 %

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)
29 Aug 29.2 °C 14 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
30 Aug 28.4 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
31 Aug 29.0 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
1 Sept 29.9 °C 14 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
2 Sept 29.3 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
3 Sept 29.8 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
4 Sept 30.0 °C 16 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
5 Sept 30.4 °C 12 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
6 Sept 30.9 °C 13 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
7 Sept 30.4 °C 16 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
8 Sept 30.1 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
9 Sept 30.7 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
10 Sept 31.7 °C 22 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
11 Sept 31.1 °C 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
12 Sept 29.6 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
13 Sept 30.0 °C 16 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
14 Sept after 32.1 °C 18 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
15 Sept after 31.4 °C 27 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
16 Sept after 30.1 °C 27 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
17 Sept after 30.4 °C 25 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
18 Sept after 31.7 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
19 Sept after 31.5 °C 23 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
20 Sept after 29.6 °C 24 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
21 Sept after 30.6 °C 23 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
22 Sept after 30.1 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
23 Sept after 30.7 °C 23 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Aug 2025
After · 20 Sept 2025

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 8 September 2025 the air beside the fire reached 46 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 25: 1.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak46 µg/m³
Days over the guideline9 days
PM1047 µg/m³
Optical depth1.04
272829303112345678910111213141516
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 268Every 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 29 August 2025 and 13 September 2025: 16 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 9,766 hectares (97.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mbarali (9,823 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.7 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 41 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.