Skip to content
worldfires
TZ · Tanzania · →

Meatu fire, 20 July 2022 Meatu

Out · last detection 25 Jul 2022, 23:46 UTC

The fire started on 20 July 2022 in Meatu, Tanzania, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,668 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 35th largest in Simiyu since 2016 (of 68 with a page). Number 29 in Tanzania in 2022, of 71.

Burnt area
4,668ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
20 Jul 2022 – 25 Jul 2022
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
20 Jul
2022
Heat detections
112
in a single hotspot: 97 MW
Danger at start
41
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

25 Jul 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Jul25 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

202122232425

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

The weather it burned in

28°high
48km/h · peak gust
29%lowest humidity

It had gone 51 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

62% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 679 ha in 2020, 2,432 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,888 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Meatu where it started
    4,697 ha reached on 20 Jul
    0.5 %

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)
20 Jul 26.0 °C 33 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
21 Jul 25.9 °C 32 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
22 Jul 26.3 °C 33 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
23 Jul 26.5 °C 32 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
24 Jul 27.5 °C 29 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
25 Jul 27.7 °C 30 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
26 Jul after 26.3 °C 30 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
27 Jul after 27.6 °C 29 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
28 Jul after 27.7 °C 31 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
29 Jul after 25.1 °C 38 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
30 Jul after 24.5 °C 42 % 28 km/h 0.2 mm High 31
31 Jul after 26.4 °C 35 % 24 km/h 0.7 mm High 25
1 Aug after 26.0 °C 38 % 36 km/h 0.3 mm High 30
2 Aug after 23.5 °C 40 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
3 Aug after 24.8 °C 39 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm High 29
4 Aug after 26.3 °C 33 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 34

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Jul 2022
After · 1 Aug 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 · 112Every 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 20 July 2022 and 25 July 2022: 6 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 4,668 hectares (46.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Meatu (4,697 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 27.7 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, 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.