How long did the Meatu fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 29 June 2026 and 8 July 2026: 10 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 3,172 hectares (31.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Meatu (3,192 ha, 0.4 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 28.4 °C, humidity dropped to 31 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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.

TZ · Tanzania · 2026-06-29 → 2026-07-08

Meatu fire, June 2026 Meatu

Out · last detection 9 Jul 2026, 11:19 UTC

The fire started on 29 June 2026 in Meatu, Tanzania, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,172 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 64th largest in Simiyu since 2016 (of 68 with a page). Number 176 in Tanzania in 2026, of 196.

Burnt area: 3,172ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 10days; 29 Jun 2026 – 8 Jul 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 29 Jun; 2026
Heat detections: 92; in a single hotspot: 40 MW
Danger at start: 35; High · FWI index
Energy released: 864MW; sum of detected power

Play back 9 Jul 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Jun8 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

29303456789

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

51km/h · peak gust

31%lowest humidity

It had gone 36 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,529 ha in 2016, 2,113 ha in 2020, 1,171 ha in 2021, 42 ha in 2022, 1 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,065 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Meatu where it started

3,192 ha reached on 29 Jun

0.4 %

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)
29 Jun	28.4 °C	37 %	36 km/h	0.2 mm	High 35
30 Jun	26.8 °C	41 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
1 Jul	26.8 °C	39 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
2 Jul	26.4 °C	37 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
3 Jul	28.3 °C	31 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
4 Jul	28.2 °C	35 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
5 Jul	25.7 °C	44 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
6 Jul	26.3 °C	38 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
7 Jul	26.2 °C	39 %	51 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
8 Jul	26.5 °C	38 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
9 Jul after	28.2 °C	35 %	32 km/h	0.1 mm	High 31
10 Jul after	28.0 °C	39 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
11 Jul after	27.1 °C	40 %	35 km/h	0.1 mm	High 32
12 Jul after	27.0 °C	45 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
13 Jul after	23.2 °C	50 %	33 km/h	0.4 mm	High 28
14 Jul after	26.8 °C	41 %	40 km/h	0.2 mm	High 29
15 Jul after	27.4 °C	39 %	36 km/h	0.2 mm	High 30
16 Jul after	28.4 °C	35 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
17 Jul after	26.6 °C	42 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
18 Jul after	28.2 °C	34 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 22 Jun 2026

After · 15 Jul 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 8 July 2026 the air beside the fire reached 27 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 15: 1.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak27 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1033 µg/m³

Optical depth0.60

WHO 15

272829301234567891011

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 · 92Every 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 Meatu fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 29 June 2026 and 8 July 2026: 10 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 3,172 hectares (31.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Meatu (3,192 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 28.4 °C, humidity dropped to 31 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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

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.

Report an error

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