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Mlele fire, 1 August 2026 Mlele

Out · last detection 16 Aug 2026, 11:08 UTC

The fire started on 1 August 2026 in Mlele, Tanzania, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,770 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 53th largest in Katavi since 2016 (of 271 with a page). Number 38 in Tanzania in 2026, of 200.

Burnt area
7,770ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
15days
1 Aug 2026 – 15 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
1 Aug
2026
Heat detections
180
in a single hotspot: 145 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

16 Aug 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Aug15 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

125678910111213141516

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
42km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

57% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,063 ha in 2016, 11 ha in 2017, 1,049 ha in 2018, 840 ha in 2019, 1,474 ha in 2020, 268 ha in 2021, 16 ha in 2022, 15 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,461 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mlele where it started
    7,817 ha reached on 1 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)
1 Aug 30.3 °C 26 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
2 Aug 30.4 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
3 Aug 30.6 °C 29 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
4 Aug 30.1 °C 31 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
5 Aug 31.0 °C 31 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
6 Aug 31.4 °C 30 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
7 Aug 32.1 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
8 Aug 30.9 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
9 Aug 30.7 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
10 Aug 32.3 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
11 Aug 32.3 °C 20 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
12 Aug 32.9 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
13 Aug 31.6 °C 17 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
14 Aug 31.2 °C 26 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
15 Aug 30.2 °C 27 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
16 Aug after 30.4 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
17 Aug after 31.0 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
18 Aug after 31.6 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
19 Aug after 31.9 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
20 Aug after 30.4 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
21 Aug after 31.3 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
22 Aug after 31.7 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
23 Aug after 31.1 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
24 Aug after 33.2 °C 25 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
25 Aug after 32.5 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Jul 2026
After · 22 Aug 2026

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 · Copernicus

On 14 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 31 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 20: 1.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak31 µg/m³
Days over the guideline8 days
PM1032 µg/m³
Optical depth0.49
3031123456789101112131415161718
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 · 180Every 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 August 2026 and 15 August 2026: 15 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 7,770 hectares (77.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mlele (7,817 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.9 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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.