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Mlele fire, 8 September 2020 Mlele

Out · last detection 12 Sept 2020, 23:15 UTC

The fire started on 8 September 2020 in Mlele, Tanzania, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,085 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 156th largest in Katavi since 2016 (of 271 with a page). Number 104 in Tanzania in 2020, of 187.

Burnt area
4,085ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
8 Sept 2020 – 12 Sept 2020
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
8 Sept
2020
Heat detections
112
in a single hotspot: 42 MW
Danger at start
34
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

12 Sept 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Sept12 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

89101112

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
44km/h · peak gust
30%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

51% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 288 ha in 2016, 1,054 ha in 2017, 1,065 ha in 2018, 253 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,093 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mlele where it started
    4,106 ha reached on 8 Sept
    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)
8 Sept 29.3 °C 34 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
9 Sept 29.8 °C 30 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
10 Sept 30.9 °C 31 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
11 Sept 31.2 °C 31 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
12 Sept 31.0 °C 32 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
13 Sept after 31.7 °C 31 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
14 Sept after 32.2 °C 29 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
15 Sept after 33.1 °C 28 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
16 Sept after 33.8 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
17 Sept after 33.8 °C 21 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
18 Sept after 32.9 °C 26 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
19 Sept after 32.6 °C 27 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
20 Sept after 32.5 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
21 Sept after 33.1 °C 24 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
22 Sept after 33.1 °C 30 % 32 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 · 1 Sept 2020
After · 19 Sept 2020

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 · 112Every 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 8 September 2020 and 12 September 2020: 5 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 4,085 hectares (40.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mlele (4,106 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.2 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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.