How long did the Mbarali fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 16 August 2026 and 22 August 2026: 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 3,619 hectares (36.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Mbarali (3,640 ha, 0.2 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 29.6 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, class 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 · 2026-08-16 → 2026-08-22

Mbarali fire, August 2026 Mbarali

Out · last detection 22 Aug 2026, 10:53 UTC

The fire started on 16 August 2026 in Mbarali, Tanzania, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,619 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 102th largest in Mbeya since 2016 (of 147 with a page). Number 126 in Tanzania in 2026, of 196.

The power measured by the satellite is low (9.0 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area: 3,619ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 7days; 16 Aug 2026 – 22 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 16 Aug; 2026
Heat detections: 32; in a single hotspot: 9 MW
Danger at start: 30; High · FWI index
Energy released: 139MW; sum of detected power

Play back 22 Aug 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Aug22 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

161718202122

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

The weather it burned in

30°high

32km/h · peak gust

28%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

61% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 166 ha in 2016, 719 ha in 2017, 304 ha in 2018, 794 ha in 2019, 911 ha in 2020, 664 ha in 2023, 21 ha in 2024, 169 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,213 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Mbarali where it started

3,640 ha reached on 16 Aug

0.2 %

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)
16 Aug	26.9 °C	36 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
17 Aug	27.7 °C	32 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
18 Aug	27.5 °C	31 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
19 Aug	28.3 °C	28 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
20 Aug	27.5 °C	28 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
21 Aug	28.1 °C	30 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
22 Aug	29.6 °C	30 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
23 Aug after	27.6 °C	41 %	28 km/h	0.1 mm	High 31
24 Aug after	29.5 °C	36 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
25 Aug after	29.1 °C	32 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
26 Aug after	29.6 °C	32 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
27 Aug after	28.8 °C	32 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
28 Aug after	29.2 °C	27 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
29 Aug after	27.3 °C	33 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
30 Aug after	28.5 °C	33 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
31 Aug after	28.5 °C	34 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
1 Sept after	28.4 °C	36 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 9 Aug 2026

After · 29 Aug 2026

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.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 24 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 25 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 18: 1.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak25 µg/m³

Days over the guideline7 days

PM1028 µg/m³

Optical depth0.58

WHO 15

141516171819202122232425

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 · 32Every 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?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 16 August 2026 and 22 August 2026: 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 3,619 hectares (36.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Mbarali (3,640 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 29.6 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, class 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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