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Mlele fire, September 2019 Mlele

Out · last detection 23 Sept 2019, 11:27 UTC

The fire started on 14 September 2019 in Mlele, Tanzania, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,170 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 30th largest in Katavi since 2016 (of 271 with a page). Number 18 in Tanzania in 2019, of 123.

Burnt area
10,170ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
14 Sept 2019 – 23 Sept 2019
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
14 Sept
2019
Heat detections
394
in a single hotspot: 42 MW
Danger at start
31
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

23 Sept 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Sept23 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

14151617181920212223

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
37km/h · peak gust
28%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.4 mm on 1 Oct.

This area had burned before

75% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,682 ha in 2016, 5,813 ha in 2017, 390 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,612 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mlele where it started
    10,249 ha reached on 10 Sept
    0.3 %

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 Sept 31.5 °C 29 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
15 Sept 30.5 °C 33 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
16 Sept 30.4 °C 35 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
17 Sept 29.7 °C 35 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
18 Sept 30.7 °C 30 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
19 Sept 30.3 °C 30 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
20 Sept 30.2 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
21 Sept 30.5 °C 28 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
22 Sept 30.2 °C 32 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
23 Sept 31.1 °C 32 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
24 Sept after 31.2 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
25 Sept after 30.1 °C 31 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
26 Sept after 29.5 °C 35 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
27 Sept after 27.8 °C 44 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
28 Sept after 30.2 °C 33 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
29 Sept after 31.4 °C 31 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
30 Sept after 31.5 °C 34 % 27 km/h 0.3 mm High 30
1 Oct after 30.2 °C 44 % 35 km/h 3.4 mm Low 7

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Sept 2019
After · 30 Sept 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 · 394Every 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 September 2019 and 23 September 2019: 10 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 10,170 hectares (101.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mlele (10,249 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.5 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 35, 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.