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Mlele fire, 14 July 2019 Mlele

Out · last detection 20 Jul 2019, 11:46 UTC

The fire started on 14 July 2019 in Mlele, Tanzania, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,985 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 163th largest in Katavi since 2016 (of 271 with a page). Number 70 in Tanzania in 2019, of 123.

Burnt area
3,985ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
14 Jul 2019 – 19 Jul 2019
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
14 Jul
2019
Heat detections
115
in a single hotspot: 60 MW
Danger at start
28
High · FWI index
Energy released
968MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

20 Jul 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Jul19 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

14151617181920

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

The weather it burned in

28°high
34km/h · peak gust
35%lowest humidity

It had gone 55 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

52% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 515 ha in 2016, 1,769 ha in 2017, 964 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,089 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mlele where it started
    4,016 ha reached on 14 Jul
    0.1 %

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)
14 Jul 27.8 °C 40 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
15 Jul 26.5 °C 38 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
16 Jul 26.3 °C 35 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
17 Jul 26.6 °C 40 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
18 Jul 25.8 °C 38 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
19 Jul 26.7 °C 38 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
20 Jul after 28.0 °C 41 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
21 Jul after 28.9 °C 31 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
22 Jul after 26.7 °C 33 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
23 Jul after 26.4 °C 34 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
24 Jul after 28.6 °C 26 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
25 Jul after 29.1 °C 25 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
26 Jul after 27.1 °C 30 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
27 Jul after 26.2 °C 32 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
28 Jul after 25.9 °C 33 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
29 Jul after 27.2 °C 36 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 31

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Jul 2019
After · 26 Jul 2019

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 · 115Every 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 14 July 2019 and 19 July 2019: 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 3,985 hectares (39.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mlele (4,016 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 27.8 °C, humidity dropped to 35 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 29, class 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.