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Mlele fire, 19 August 2022 Mlele

Out · last detection 26 Aug 2022, 11:03 UTC

The fire started on 19 August 2022 in Mlele, Tanzania, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,226 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 39th largest in Katavi since 2016 (of 271 with a page). Number 7 in Tanzania in 2022, of 71.

Burnt area
9,226ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
19 Aug 2022 – 26 Aug 2022
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
19 Aug
2022
Heat detections
366
in a single hotspot: 120 MW
Danger at start
36
High · FWI index
Energy released
3.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

26 Aug 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Aug26 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

1920212223242526

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
47km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

81% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,780 ha in 2016, 2,673 ha in 2017, 402 ha in 2018, 5,357 ha in 2019, 86 ha in 2020, 2,660 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,438 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mlele where it started
    9,274 ha reached on 19 Aug
    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)
19 Aug 31.7 °C 26 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
20 Aug 32.9 °C 24 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
21 Aug 32.4 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
22 Aug 29.1 °C 31 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
23 Aug 29.8 °C 27 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
24 Aug 29.1 °C 28 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
25 Aug 30.0 °C 26 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
26 Aug 31.1 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
27 Aug after 29.8 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
28 Aug after 28.7 °C 34 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
29 Aug after 30.0 °C 31 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
30 Aug after 29.7 °C 33 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
31 Aug after 31.2 °C 30 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
1 Sept after 30.1 °C 29 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
2 Sept after 30.9 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
3 Sept after 30.0 °C 26 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
4 Sept after 31.9 °C 23 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
5 Sept after 32.7 °C 20 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 12 Aug 2022
After · 2 Sept 2022

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 · 366Every 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 19 August 2022 and 26 August 2022: 8 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 9,226 hectares (92.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mlele (9,274 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.9 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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.