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Mpanda fire, June 2021 Mpanda

Out · last detection 6 Jul 2021, 11:02 UTC

The fire started on 23 June 2021 in Mpanda, Tanzania, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,069 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 80th largest in Katavi since 2016 (of 271 with a page). Number 41 in Tanzania in 2021, of 135.

Burnt area
6,069ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
14days
23 Jun 2021 – 6 Jul 2021
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
23 Jun
2021
Heat detections
260
in a single hotspot: 222 MW
Danger at start
34
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

6 Jul 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Jun6 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

23252627282930123456

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

The weather it burned in

30°high
41km/h · peak gust
27%lowest humidity

It had gone 43 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: 3,344 ha in 2016, 2,222 ha in 2017, 4,084 ha in 2018, 4,466 ha in 2019, 3,726 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,070 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mpanda where it started
    6,117 ha reached on 23 Jun
    0.4 %

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)
23 Jun 29.4 °C 35 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
24 Jun 29.4 °C 34 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
25 Jun 29.5 °C 32 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
26 Jun 29.5 °C 34 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
27 Jun 30.0 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
28 Jun 28.7 °C 31 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
29 Jun 28.8 °C 33 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
30 Jun 30.3 °C 32 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
1 Jul 29.9 °C 38 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
2 Jul 30.1 °C 31 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
3 Jul 29.3 °C 28 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
4 Jul 29.9 °C 29 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
5 Jul 29.2 °C 31 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
6 Jul 28.4 °C 31 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
7 Jul after 28.5 °C 34 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
8 Jul after 28.1 °C 37 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
9 Jul after 28.7 °C 34 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
10 Jul after 27.8 °C 32 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
11 Jul after 28.1 °C 30 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
12 Jul after 28.8 °C 31 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
13 Jul after 29.8 °C 34 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
14 Jul after 29.7 °C 39 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
15 Jul after 29.6 °C 37 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
16 Jul after 29.3 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 35

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Jun 2021
After · 13 Jul 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 · 260Every 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 Mpanda fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 23 June 2021 and 6 July 2021: 14 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 6,069 hectares (60.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mpanda (6,117 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.3 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, 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.