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Mlele fire, 5 June 2017 Mlele

Out · last detection 10 Jun 2017, 10:43 UTC

The fire started on 5 June 2017 in Mlele, Tanzania, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,510 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 68th largest in Katavi since 2016 (of 271 with a page). Number 26 in Tanzania in 2017, of 104.

Burnt area
6,510ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
5 Jun 2017 – 10 Jun 2017
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
5 Jun
2017
Heat detections
137
in a single hotspot: 142 MW
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 Jun 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Jun10 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

5678910

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
42km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

It had gone 22 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

43% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,794 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Mlele where it started
    6,555 ha reached on 5 Jun
    0.2 %

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)
5 Jun 32.6 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
6 Jun 31.9 °C 28 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
7 Jun 31.6 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
8 Jun 32.0 °C 29 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
9 Jun 30.8 °C 33 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
10 Jun 30.8 °C 30 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
11 Jun after 30.6 °C 25 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
12 Jun after 30.9 °C 29 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
13 Jun after 31.1 °C 31 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
14 Jun after 32.3 °C 27 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
15 Jun after 31.9 °C 27 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
16 Jun after 31.2 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
17 Jun after 30.4 °C 33 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
18 Jun after 30.1 °C 33 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
19 Jun after 31.5 °C 28 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
20 Jun after 30.5 °C 31 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 37

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 May 2017
After · 17 Jun 2017

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 · 137Every 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 5 June 2017 and 10 June 2017: 6 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 6,510 hectares (65.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mlele (6,555 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.6 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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.