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Mpanda fire, 8 July 2022 Mpanda

Out · last detection 16 Jul 2022, 12:11 UTC

The fire started on 8 July 2022 in Mpanda, Tanzania, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,312 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 228th largest in Katavi since 2016 (of 271 with a page). Number 59 in Tanzania in 2022, of 71.

Burnt area
3,312ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
8 Jul 2022 – 16 Jul 2022
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
8 Jul
2022
Heat detections
94
in a single hotspot: 74 MW
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
591MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

16 Jul 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Jul16 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

89101113141516

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
44km/h · peak gust
25%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

84% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 660 ha in 2016, 1 ha in 2017, 1,545 ha in 2019, 747 ha in 2020, 90 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,767 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mpanda where it started
    3,338 ha reached on 5 Jul
    0.2 %

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)
8 Jul 28.9 °C 29 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
9 Jul 28.5 °C 29 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
10 Jul 28.9 °C 25 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
11 Jul 28.4 °C 27 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
12 Jul 29.1 °C 29 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
13 Jul 28.6 °C 30 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
14 Jul 29.9 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
15 Jul 29.8 °C 31 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
16 Jul 29.5 °C 30 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
17 Jul after 28.2 °C 33 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
18 Jul after 28.5 °C 31 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
19 Jul after 28.3 °C 30 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
20 Jul after 28.8 °C 29 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
21 Jul after 28.5 °C 30 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
22 Jul after 28.5 °C 30 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
23 Jul after 29.0 °C 29 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
24 Jul after 30.5 °C 27 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
25 Jul after 30.4 °C 29 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
26 Jul after 29.7 °C 31 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Jul 2022
After · 23 Jul 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 · 94Every 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 8 July 2022 and 16 July 2022: 9 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 3,312 hectares (33.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mpanda (3,338 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.9 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, 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.