Mlele fire, 6 June 2024 Mlele
The fire started on 6 June 2024 in Mlele, Tanzania, and satellites saw it burning for 4 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 142th largest in Katavi since 2016 (of 271 with a page). Number 30 in Tanzania in 2024, of 70.
- Burnt area
- 4,250ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 4days
- 6 Jun 2024 – 9 Jun 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 6 Jun
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 176
- in a single hotspot: 63 MW
- Danger at start
- 34
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 1.7GW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 39 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 7,794 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,534 ha Mlele fire, June 2018 8,377 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
What happened to each town
-
Mlele where it started4,279 ha reached on 4 Jun0.1 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6 Jun | 33.3 °C | 30 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 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 35 |
| 9 Jun | 30.3 °C | 28 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 10 Jun after | 28.9 °C | 35 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 11 Jun after | 26.8 °C | 43 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 12 Jun after | 30.8 °C | 34 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 13 Jun after | 31.5 °C | 35 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 14 Jun after | 31.6 °C | 30 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 15 Jun after | 30.7 °C | 27 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 16 Jun after | 30.1 °C | 32 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 17 Jun after | 31.4 °C | 29 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 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 38 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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).
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 · 176Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Mlele fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 6 June 2024 and 9 June 2024: 4 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 4,250 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 39, 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
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.