How long did the Meatu fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 6 October 2026 to 16 October 2026 (11 days). The perimeter dates it from 8 October 2026 to 16 October 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 4,437 hectares (44.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Meatu (4,465 ha, 0.5 %).

Is the Meatu fire still active?

No fire detections since 15 Oct 2026, 23:26 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 33.3 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 57, class Extreme.

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 · 2026-10-06 → 2026-10-16

Meatu fire, October 2026 Meatu

Out · last detection 15 Oct 2026, 23:26 UTC

The fire started on 6 October 2026 in Meatu, Tanzania, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,437 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 38th largest in Simiyu since 2016 (of 68 with a page). Number 90 in Tanzania in 2026, of 196.

The power measured by the satellite is low (24.4 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: 4,437ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 11days; 6 Oct 2026 – 16 Oct 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 6 Oct; 2026
Heat detections: 113; in a single hotspot: 24 MW
Danger at start: 57; Extreme · FWI index
Energy released: 454MW; sum of detected power

Play back 15 Oct 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Oct16 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

678911131415

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

The weather it burned in

33°high

45km/h · peak gust

16%lowest humidity

It had gone 13 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

73% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,898 ha in 2016, 191 ha in 2018, 1,722 ha in 2020, 222 ha in 2022, 1,007 ha in 2023, 48 ha in 2024, 792 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,252 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Meatu where it started

4,465 ha reached on 6 Oct

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)
6 Oct	33.3 °C	21 %	39 km/h	0.2 mm	Extreme 57
7 Oct	32.3 °C	29 %	40 km/h	0.5 mm	Very high 50
8 Oct	31.6 °C	26 %	37 km/h	1.4 mm	High 38
9 Oct	31.4 °C	32 %	43 km/h	1.0 mm	High 33
10 Oct	31.0 °C	31 %	45 km/h	1.9 mm	High 30
11 Oct	30.2 °C	27 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
12 Oct	31.8 °C	23 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
13 Oct	33.0 °C	16 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
14 Oct	33.0 °C	21 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
15 Oct	31.7 °C	28 %	40 km/h	0.4 mm	Very high 48
16 Oct	30.6 °C	30 %	37 km/h	2.8 mm	Moderate 20
17 Oct after	27.3 °C	40 %	31 km/h	0.7 mm	High 24
18 Oct after	28.8 °C	36 %	28 km/h	0.5 mm	High 27

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 29 Sept 2026

After · 23 Oct 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 4 October 2026 the air beside the fire reached 15 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak15 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1017 µg/m³

Optical depth0.34

4567891011121314151617

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 · 113Every 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?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 6 October 2026 to 16 October 2026 (11 days). The perimeter dates it from 8 October 2026 to 16 October 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 4,437 hectares (44.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Meatu (4,465 ha, 0.5 %).
Is the Meatu fire still active?: No fire detections since 15 Oct 2026, 23:26 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 33.3 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 57, class Extreme.
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.

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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