Skip to content
worldfires
TZ · Tanzania · →

Mlele fire, October 2016 Mlele

Out · last detection 17 Oct 2016, 11:09 UTC

The fire started on 11 October 2016 in Mlele, Tanzania, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 24,580 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 4th largest in Katavi since 2016 (of 271 with a page). Number 6 in Tanzania in 2016, of 160.

Burnt area
24,580ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
11 Oct 2016 – 17 Oct 2016
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
11 Oct
2016
Heat detections
680
in a single hotspot: 322 MW
Danger at start
38
High · FWI index
Energy released
15.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

17 Oct 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Oct17 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

11121314151617

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
44km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days 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
    24,752 ha reached on 11 Oct
    0.8 %

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)
11 Oct 35.5 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
12 Oct 34.6 °C 20 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 Oct 34.8 °C 18 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
14 Oct 35.5 °C 19 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
15 Oct 34.8 °C 21 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
16 Oct 35.5 °C 21 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
17 Oct 35.7 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
18 Oct after 35.0 °C 25 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
19 Oct after 34.0 °C 23 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
20 Oct after 34.3 °C 18 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
21 Oct after 34.6 °C 16 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
22 Oct after 35.3 °C 22 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
23 Oct after 35.9 °C 17 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
24 Oct after 36.9 °C 16 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
25 Oct after 36.3 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
26 Oct after 35.9 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
27 Oct after 35.2 °C 26 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 44

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Oct 2016
After · 24 Oct 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 · 680Every 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 11 October 2016 and 17 October 2016: 7 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 24,580 hectares (245.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mlele (24,752 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.7 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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.