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Meatu fire, 8 July 2020 Meatu

Out · last detection 12 Jul 2020, 22:36 UTC

The fire started on 8 July 2020 in Meatu, Tanzania, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,522 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 27th largest in Simiyu since 2016 (of 68 with a page). Number 54 in Tanzania in 2020, of 187.

The power measured by the satellite is low (25.9 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
5,522ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
8 Jul 2020 – 12 Jul 2020
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
8 Jul
2020
Heat detections
146
in a single hotspot: 26 MW
Danger at start
28
High · FWI index
Energy released
797MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

12 Jul 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Jul12 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

89101112

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

The weather it burned in

27°high
55km/h · peak gust
42%lowest humidity

It had gone 25 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

30% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,044 ha in 2016, 125 ha in 2018, 727 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,653 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Meatu where it started
    5,558 ha reached on 8 Jul
    0.6 %

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)
8 Jul 24.4 °C 47 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
9 Jul 26.6 °C 43 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
10 Jul 25.0 °C 52 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
11 Jul 24.1 °C 49 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
12 Jul 26.4 °C 42 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
13 Jul after 24.3 °C 45 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
14 Jul after 25.1 °C 43 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
15 Jul after 25.2 °C 47 % 43 km/h 0.3 mm High 29
16 Jul after 23.0 °C 46 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
17 Jul after 22.9 °C 38 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
18 Jul after 22.1 °C 41 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
19 Jul after 23.3 °C 43 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
20 Jul after 23.3 °C 49 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
21 Jul after 25.2 °C 43 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
22 Jul after 25.6 °C 44 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 28

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Jul 2020
After · 19 Jul 2020

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 · 146Every 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 8 July 2020 and 12 July 2020: 5 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 5,522 hectares (55.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Meatu (5,558 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 26.6 °C, humidity dropped to 42 % and gusts hit 55 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

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.