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Mlele fire, 1 June 2021 Mlele

Out · last detection 10 Jun 2021, 23:33 UTC

The fire started on 1 June 2021 in Mlele, Tanzania, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,407 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 58th largest in Katavi since 2016 (of 271 with a page). Number 25 in Tanzania in 2021, of 135.

Burnt area
7,407ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
1 Jun 2021 – 10 Jun 2021
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
1 Jun
2021
Heat detections
216
in a single hotspot: 50 MW
Danger at start
33
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 Jun 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Jun10 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

12345678910

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
32%lowest humidity

It had gone 22 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,847 ha in 2016, 6,187 ha in 2017, 5,671 ha in 2018, 3,640 ha in 2019, 6,193 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,455 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mlele where it started
    7,458 ha reached on 1 Jun
    0.2 %

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 Jun 31.5 °C 32 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
2 Jun 30.9 °C 33 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
3 Jun 32.1 °C 32 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
4 Jun 31.5 °C 34 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
5 Jun 30.1 °C 39 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
6 Jun 28.3 °C 44 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
7 Jun 29.9 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
8 Jun 30.4 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
9 Jun 30.7 °C 34 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
10 Jun 30.3 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
11 Jun after 30.5 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
12 Jun after 30.7 °C 34 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
13 Jun after 31.1 °C 32 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
14 Jun after 31.6 °C 30 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
15 Jun after 31.7 °C 22 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
16 Jun after 31.3 °C 26 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
17 Jun after 31.2 °C 28 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
18 Jun after 30.9 °C 32 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
19 Jun after 30.3 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
20 Jun after 29.4 °C 33 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 38

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 May 2021
After · 17 Jun 2021

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 · 216Every 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 June 2021 and 10 June 2021: 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 7,407 hectares (74.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mlele (7,458 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.1 °C, humidity dropped to 32 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 33, 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.