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Mlele fire, 6 September 2017 Mlele

Out · last detection 24 Sept 2017, 23:40 UTC

The fire started on 6 September 2017 in Mlele, Tanzania, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 16,957 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 12th largest in Katavi since 2016 (of 271 with a page). Number 7 in Tanzania in 2017, of 104.

Burnt area
16,957ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
19days
6 Sept 2017 – 24 Sept 2017
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
6 Sept
2017
Heat detections
634
in a single hotspot: 68 MW
Danger at start
35
High · FWI index
Energy released
4.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

24 Sept 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Sept24 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

6789101112131415161718192021222324

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
42km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 27 Sept.

This area had burned before

53% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 9,385 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Mlele where it started
    17,077 ha reached on 6 Sept
    0.6 %

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 Sept 27.9 °C 31 % 34 km/h 0.2 mm High 35
7 Sept 28.1 °C 26 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
8 Sept 27.8 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
9 Sept 28.9 °C 22 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
10 Sept 27.7 °C 28 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
11 Sept 29.6 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
12 Sept 29.4 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
13 Sept 28.4 °C 22 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
14 Sept 29.5 °C 19 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
15 Sept 29.9 °C 26 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
16 Sept 29.6 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
17 Sept 31.3 °C 22 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
18 Sept 30.1 °C 21 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
19 Sept 29.4 °C 27 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
20 Sept 28.6 °C 33 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
21 Sept 29.2 °C 27 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
22 Sept 28.9 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
23 Sept 28.7 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
24 Sept 28.6 °C 24 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
25 Sept after 29.5 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
26 Sept after 27.5 °C 37 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
27 Sept after 28.8 °C 37 % 30 km/h 1.1 mm Moderate 19

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 30 Aug 2017
After · 1 Oct 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 · 634Every 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 6 September 2017 and 24 September 2017: 19 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 16,957 hectares (169.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mlele (17,077 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.3 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % 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.