Meatu fire, 17 September 2025 Meatu
The fire started on 17 September 2025 in Meatu, Tanzania, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,225 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 61th largest in Simiyu since 2016 (of 68 with a page). Number 144 in Tanzania in 2025, of 161.
- Burnt area
- 3,225ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 5days
- 17 Sept 2025 – 21 Sept 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 17 Sept
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 55
- in a single hotspot: 67 MW
- Danger at start
- 36
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 289MW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 29 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
87% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,605 ha in 2016, 1,586 ha in 2020, 1,158 ha in 2021, 573 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,820 ha that had burned before.
- 1,158 ha Meatu fire, July 2021 5,669 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 734 ha Meatu fire, July 2020 3,284 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 52 ha Meatu fire, July 2020 4,665 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Meatu where it started3,246 ha reached on 18 Sept0.4 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17 Sept | 28.5 °C | 30 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 18 Sept | 28.9 °C | 31 % | 46 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 42 |
| 19 Sept | 28.2 °C | 27 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 20 Sept | 26.7 °C | 29 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 21 Sept | 26.9 °C | 35 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 22 Sept after | 27.2 °C | 35 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 23 Sept after | 27.3 °C | 32 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 24 Sept after | 28.8 °C | 22 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 25 Sept after | 29.5 °C | 27 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 26 Sept after | 28.4 °C | 30 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 27 Sept after | 28.6 °C | 25 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 28 Sept after | 28.3 °C | 28 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 29 Sept after | 30.6 °C | 24 % | 35 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 38 |
| 30 Sept after | 30.4 °C | 19 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 1 Oct after | 28.7 °C | 22 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 17 September 2025 the air beside the fire reached 20 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).
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 · 55Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Meatu fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 17 September 2025 and 21 September 2025: 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 3,225 hectares (32.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Meatu (3,246 ha, 0.4 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 28.9 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, 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
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.