Burned area
satellite only4,250ha
Perimeter published by GWIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 31 May 2024 – 11 Jun 2024
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
TZ · Tanzania · –
Mlele fire, May 2024 Mlele
Out · last detection 11 Jun 2024, 11:20 UTC
The fire started on 31 May 2024 in Mlele, Tanzania, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,250 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 111th largest in Katavi since 2016 (of 213 with a page). Number 30 in Tanzania in 2024, of 70.
Use this data
Compare with…
Suggestions: Uvinza · 2025Mlele · 2017Mlele · 2022Mlele · 2019
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-11-05matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only12days
31 May 2024 to 11 Jun 2024: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 11 Jun 2024, 11:20 UTC
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only31 May 2024
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 31 May 2024
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only182
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 63 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP + NOAA-20)
- Date
- 31 May 2024 – 11 Jun 2024
+− cross-check
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
The worst day
satellite only535MW
Total radiative power on 6 June 2024; hotspots that day: 51.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 6 Jun 2024
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model25.4FWI · high
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 33.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 31 May 2024, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model33.4°C · 26% RH
High of 33.4 °C and minimum humidity of 26% on 7 June 2024; gusts of 41 km/h on 9 June 2024.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 31 May 2024 – 11 Jun 2024
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
logStart date: 4 June 2024 → 31 May 2024.
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
logLast day with fire: 9 June 2024 → 11 June 2024.
-
logStart date: 6 June 2024 → 4 June 2024.
Area logged each night
Move the slider to see which area the page published each day.
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/mlele-2024-05?v=2026-11-05A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire mlele-2024-05.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024-05-31 | 0 | 0 | 32.9 | 17.1 | 36 | 12.5 | 31 | 0 | 25.4 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-06-01 | 0 | 0 | 33 | 18.1 | 34 | 12.9 | 31.7 | 0 | 26.5 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-06-02 | 5 | 41 | 33 | 17.8 | 34 | 12.1 | 29.9 | 0 | 27.8 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-06-03 | 1 | 12 | 33.2 | 17.8 | 34 | 10.8 | 27.7 | 0 | 27.9 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-06-04 | 4 | 74 | 33.1 | 19.1 | 34 | 13.6 | 31.7 | 0 | 30.5 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-06-05 | 0 | 0 | 33.3 | 16.8 | 26 | 11.7 | 30.2 | 0 | 33.9 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-06-06 | 51 | 535 | 33.3 | 15.8 | 30 | 12.6 | 31.3 | 0 | 34.9 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-06-07 | 31 | 432 | 33.4 | 16.1 | 26 | 11.8 | 30.2 | 0 | 33.6 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-06-08 | 41 | 289 | 32 | 16.7 | 27 | 13.1 | 32 | 0 | 35.8 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-06-09 | 39 | 449 | 30.3 | 16.9 | 28 | 17.6 | 41 | 0 | 41.9 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2024-06-10 | 6 | 18 | 28.9 | 16.1 | 35 | 16.6 | 40 | 0 | 39.4 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2024-06-11 | 4 | 15 | 26.8 | 17.9 | 43 | 16.5 | 40 | 0 | 34.6 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-06-12 | 0 | 0 | 30.8 | 17 | 34 | 12.1 | 32 | 0 | 29.8 | alto | 0 |
| 2024-06-13 | 0 | 0 | 31.5 | 17 | 35 | 9.9 | 27.7 | 0 | 27.6 | alto | 0 |
| 2024-06-14 | 0 | 0 | 31.6 | 16.1 | 30 | 13 | 33.8 | 0 | 33.1 | alto | 0 |
| 2024-06-15 | 0 | 0 | 30.7 | 15.2 | 27 | 12.6 | 33.5 | 0 | 35.4 | alto | 0 |
| 2024-06-16 | 0 | 0 | 30.1 | 15.3 | 32 | 13.3 | 33.5 | 0 | 35.8 | alto | 0 |
| 2024-06-17 | 0 | 0 | 31.4 | 15.3 | 29 | 12.5 | 31.7 | 0 | 34.7 | alto | 0 |
| 2024-06-18 | 0 | 0 | 31.5 | 15.5 | 23 | 13.9 | 34.6 | 0 | 37.8 | alto | 0 |
| 2024-06-19 | 0 | 0 | 32.4 | 15 | 30 | 14.5 | 35.3 | 0 | 38.9 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2024-06-20 | 0 | 0 | 31.8 | 18 | 32 | 15.6 | 36.7 | 0 | 39.6 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2024-06-21 | 0 | 0 | 31 | 20 | 33 | 19.8 | 44.6 | 0 | 45.7 | muy_alto | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: GWIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 4,250ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 12days
- 31 May 2024 – 11 Jun 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 31 May
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 182
- in a single hotspot: 63 MW
- Danger at start
- 25
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 207MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
31 May11 Jun
11 Jun 2024
How it evolved, day by day
2 Jun
6 Jun
9 Jun
11 Jun
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
41km/h · peak gust
26%lowest humidity
It had gone 33 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: 1,920 ha in 2016, 2,878 ha in 2017, 2,828 ha in 2018, 2,607 ha in 2019, 2,616 ha in 2020, 1,931 ha in 2021, 3,064 ha in 2022, 2,461 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,277 ha that had burned before.
- 3,008 ha Mlele fire, June 2022 17,720 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,595 ha Mlele fire, June 2019 16,714 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,209 ha Mlele fire, June 2017 6,510 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,779 ha Mlele fire, June 2021 7,407 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,717 ha Mlele fire, June 2020 7,740 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,534 ha Mlele fire, June 2018 8,306 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,111 ha Mlele fire, May 2016 5,504 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 607 ha Mlele fire, May 2018 5,669 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Mlele where it started4,279 ha reached on 2 Jun0.1 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 31 May | 32.9 °C | 36 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 1 Jun | 33.0 °C | 34 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 2 Jun | 33.0 °C | 34 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 3 Jun | 33.2 °C | 34 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 4 Jun | 33.1 °C | 34 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 5 Jun | 33.3 °C | 26 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 6 Jun | 33.3 °C | 30 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 7 Jun | 33.4 °C | 26 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 8 Jun | 32.0 °C | 27 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 9 Jun | 30.3 °C | 28 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 10 Jun | 28.9 °C | 35 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 11 Jun | 26.8 °C | 43 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 12 Jun after | 30.8 °C | 34 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 13 Jun after | 31.5 °C | 35 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 14 Jun after | 31.6 °C | 30 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 15 Jun after | 30.7 °C | 27 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 16 Jun after | 30.1 °C | 32 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 17 Jun after | 31.4 °C | 29 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 18 Jun after | 31.5 °C | 23 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 19 Jun after | 32.4 °C | 30 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 20 Jun after | 31.8 °C | 32 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 21 Jun after | 31.0 °C | 33 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 25.4, a minimum humidity of 36% and 33 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 43.
FWI at the start
25.4
Minimum humidity
36 %
Days without rain
33
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Mlele fire, May 2024
4,250 ha
12 days
FWI 25.4
Min. humidity 36 %
Uvinza fire, July 2025
3,890 ha
13 days
FWI 26.4
Min. humidity 35 %
141 km away, in 2025
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Mlele fire, June 2017
3,015 ha
7 days
FWI 26.6
Min. humidity 38 %
100 km away, in 2017
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Mlele fire, June 2021
5,928 ha
16 days
FWI 30.8
Min. humidity 36 %
15 km away, in 2021
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Mlele fire, June 2019
9,312 ha
18 days
FWI 29.9
Min. humidity 37 %
44 km away, in 2019
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Mlele fire, August 2020
3,476 ha
17 days
FWI 26.2
Min. humidity 34 %
144 km away, in 2020
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
What happened to them
- 11 days
- median duration
- 4,843 ha
- median area
- 7 %
- went past 10,000 ha
- 2.0 mm
- rain at the end (median; 4 of 43 had it)
It burned an area similar to its twins (4,250 ha against a median of 4,843 ha) and lasted 12 days, against 11 days.
In 39 of 43, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.0 mm.
This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it
How it ended
—first rain
—no rain in ten days
41km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 11 Jun, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 4 of 43, with a median of 2.0 mm.
Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)
How a twin is chosen
- Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
- Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
- Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
- Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
- They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 24 May 2024
After · 18 Jun 2024
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 12 June 2024 the air beside the fire reached 14 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).
PM2.5 peak14 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1020 µg/m³
Optical depth0.33
4 Jun6 Jun8 Jun10 Jun12 Jun
Good
Fair
Moderate
Poor
Very poor
Extremely poor
Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)
Detections table · 182Every 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 time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Mlele fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 31 May 2024 to 11 June 2024 (12 days). The perimeter dates it from 6 June 2024 to 9 June 2024.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 4,250 hectares (42.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Mlele (4,279 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 33.4 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 41 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.
- How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
- Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 43. Their median duration was 11 days and their median area 4,843 ha; 7 % went past 10,000 ha. In 39 of 43, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.0 mm.
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 · Emergency number and official warnings
Satellite cross-check
History of this page · 3 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Start date: 4 June 2024 → 31 May 2024.
- Last day with fire: 9 June 2024 → 11 June 2024.
- Start date: 6 June 2024 → 4 June 2024.
RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 6 June 2024 to 9 June 2024. 182 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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.