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Mlele fire, 4 September 2016 Mlele

Out · last detection 20 Sept 2016, 11:15 UTC

The fire started on 4 September 2016 in Mlele, Tanzania, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,475 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 28th largest in Katavi since 2016 (of 271 with a page). Number 19 in Tanzania in 2016, of 160.

Burnt area
10,475ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
16days
4 Sept 2016 – 19 Sept 2016
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
4 Sept
2016
Heat detections
304
in a single hotspot: 77 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

20 Sept 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Sept19 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

4567891011121314151617181920

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
45km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Mlele where it started
    10,537 ha reached on 4 Sept
    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)
4 Sept 31.2 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
5 Sept 31.9 °C 24 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
6 Sept 31.8 °C 29 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
7 Sept 31.8 °C 30 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
8 Sept 31.8 °C 30 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
9 Sept 31.1 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
10 Sept 32.0 °C 19 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
11 Sept 31.8 °C 21 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
12 Sept 31.9 °C 19 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
13 Sept 32.2 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
14 Sept 33.1 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
15 Sept 31.5 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
16 Sept 33.5 °C 23 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
17 Sept 32.5 °C 28 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
18 Sept 32.7 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
19 Sept 32.6 °C 22 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
20 Sept after 31.3 °C 19 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
21 Sept after 31.0 °C 22 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
22 Sept after 32.5 °C 21 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
23 Sept after 33.0 °C 25 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
24 Sept after 32.4 °C 28 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
25 Sept after 31.4 °C 30 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
26 Sept after 32.4 °C 21 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
27 Sept after 31.4 °C 24 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
28 Sept after 32.2 °C 26 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
29 Sept after 31.2 °C 33 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 36

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Aug 2016
After · 26 Sept 2016

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 · 304Every 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 Mlele fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 September 2016 and 19 September 2016: 16 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 10,475 hectares (104.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mlele (10,537 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.5 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 45 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
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.