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Meatu fire, 23 July 2016 Meatu

Out · last detection 29 Jul 2016, 11:10 UTC

The fire started on 23 July 2016 in Meatu, Tanzania, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,248 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 22th largest in Simiyu since 2016 (of 68 with a page). Number 41 in Tanzania in 2016, of 160.

Burnt area
6,248ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
23 Jul 2016 – 29 Jul 2016
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
23 Jul
2016
Heat detections
218
in a single hotspot: 50 MW
Danger at start
36
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

29 Jul 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Jul29 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

23242526272829

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
49km/h · peak gust
24%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.

What happened to each town

  1. Meatu where it started
    6,288 ha reached on 22 Jul
    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)
23 Jul 28.1 °C 30 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
24 Jul 28.8 °C 30 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
25 Jul 28.0 °C 25 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
26 Jul 27.7 °C 26 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
27 Jul 29.6 °C 24 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
28 Jul 27.8 °C 28 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
29 Jul 28.8 °C 26 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
30 Jul after 28.8 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
31 Jul after 29.3 °C 25 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
1 Aug after 29.5 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
2 Aug after 29.2 °C 21 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
3 Aug after 29.4 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
4 Aug after 27.5 °C 29 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
5 Aug after 27.0 °C 31 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
6 Aug after 26.7 °C 34 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
7 Aug after 24.9 °C 37 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
8 Aug after 25.4 °C 41 % 49 km/h 0.1 mm High 38

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Jul 2016
After · 5 Aug 2016

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 · 218Every 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 Meatu fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 23 July 2016 and 29 July 2016: 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 6,248 hectares (62.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Meatu (6,288 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.6 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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.