How long did the Mpwapwa fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 23 September 2025 and 7 October 2025: 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 3,819 hectares (38.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Mpwapwa (3,842 ha, 0.5 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 31.0 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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.

TZ · Tanzania · 2025-09-23 → 2025-10-07

Mpwapwa fire, September 2025 Mpwapwa

Out · last detection 7 Oct 2025, 10:26 UTC

The fire started on 23 September 2025 in Mpwapwa, Tanzania, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,819 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

Number 103 in Tanzania in 2025, of 161.

Burnt area: 3,819ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 15days; 23 Sept 2025 – 7 Oct 2025
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 23 Sept; 2025
Heat detections: 118; in a single hotspot: 207 MW
Danger at start: 34; High · FWI index
Energy released: 1.7GW; sum of detected power

Play back 7 Oct 2025

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Sept7 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

2324252627282930134567

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

The weather it burned in

31°high

47km/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

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

Mpwapwa where it started

3,842 ha reached on 17 Sept

0.5 %

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 Sept	26.1 °C	39 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
24 Sept	28.1 °C	31 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
25 Sept	28.9 °C	31 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
26 Sept	28.4 °C	30 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
27 Sept	28.3 °C	30 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
28 Sept	28.8 °C	31 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
29 Sept	31.0 °C	25 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
30 Sept	29.1 °C	25 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
1 Oct	28.7 °C	28 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
2 Oct	27.4 °C	37 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
3 Oct	27.8 °C	39 %	40 km/h	0.1 mm	High 35
4 Oct	28.8 °C	31 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
5 Oct	28.7 °C	26 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
6 Oct	28.0 °C	33 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
7 Oct	28.8 °C	42 %	43 km/h	0.7 mm	High 28
8 Oct after	28.6 °C	40 %	50 km/h	0.6 mm	High 29
9 Oct after	29.0 °C	34 %	50 km/h	0.4 mm	High 34
10 Oct after	28.4 °C	31 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
11 Oct after	29.5 °C	24 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
12 Oct after	28.7 °C	29 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
13 Oct after	28.9 °C	28 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
14 Oct after	28.1 °C	31 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
15 Oct after	29.9 °C	29 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
16 Oct after	29.6 °C	30 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
17 Oct after	28.4 °C	32 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 16 Sept 2025

After · 14 Oct 2025

Before After

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 3 October 2025 the air beside the fire reached 23 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 19: 1.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak23 µg/m³

Days over the guideline2 days

PM1024 µg/m³

Optical depth0.53

WHO 15

2122232425262728293012345678910

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 · 118Every 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

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Mpwapwa fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 23 September 2025 and 7 October 2025: 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 3,819 hectares (38.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Mpwapwa (3,842 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 31.0 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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What really happened?

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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.

Where it burned