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Mlele fire, 1 August 2019 Mlele, Songwe

Out · last detection 8 Aug 2019, 10:49 UTC

The fire started on 1 August 2019 in Mlele, Tanzania, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,692 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 45th largest in Katavi since 2016 (of 271 with a page). Number 23 in Tanzania in 2019, of 123.

Burnt area
8,692ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
1 Aug 2019 – 7 Aug 2019
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
1 Aug
2019
Heat detections
236
in a single hotspot: 200 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Energy released
3.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

8 Aug 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Aug7 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

12345678

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
44km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

84% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,741 ha in 2016, 4,630 ha in 2017, 2,691 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,275 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mlele where it started
    7,659 ha reached on 1 Aug
    0.3 %
  2. Songwe
    1,099 ha reached on 3 Aug
    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)
1 Aug 29.0 °C 37 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
2 Aug 31.0 °C 32 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
3 Aug 31.0 °C 28 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
4 Aug 31.1 °C 25 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
5 Aug 31.8 °C 22 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
6 Aug 31.7 °C 23 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
7 Aug 31.9 °C 25 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
8 Aug after 30.6 °C 29 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
9 Aug after 31.0 °C 31 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
10 Aug after 30.1 °C 28 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
11 Aug after 29.5 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
12 Aug after 30.1 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
13 Aug after 30.4 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
14 Aug after 29.4 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
15 Aug after 29.5 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
16 Aug after 28.9 °C 24 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
17 Aug after 29.7 °C 26 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Jul 2019
After · 14 Aug 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 · 236Every 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 1 August 2019 and 7 August 2019: 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 8,692 hectares (86.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mlele (7,659 ha, 0.3 %); Songwe (1,099 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.9 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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.