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Nyasa fire, 13 October 2018 Nyasa

Out · last detection 17 Oct 2018, 11:20 UTC

The fire started on 13 October 2018 in Nyasa, Tanzania, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,265 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 76th largest in Ruvuma since 2016 (of 92 with a page). Number 57 in Tanzania in 2018, of 72.

Burnt area
3,265ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
13 Oct 2018 – 18 Oct 2018
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
13 Oct
2018
Heat detections
85
in a single hotspot: 49 MW
Danger at start
24
High · FWI index
Average daily power
224MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

17 Oct 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Oct18 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

13 Oct 2018 · 28 MW · 2 14 Oct 2018 · 31 MW · 8 15 Oct 2018 · 494 MW · 35 16 Oct 2018 · 539 MW · 35 17 Oct 2018 · 27 MW · 5
13 Oct 14 Oct 15 Oct 16 Oct 17 Oct

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
42km/h · peak gust
27%lowest humidity

It had gone 10 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.5 mm on 19 Oct.

This area had burned before

81% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,228 ha in 2016, 1,300 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,649 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Nyasa where it started
    3,289 ha reached on 13 Oct
    1.1 %

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)
13 Oct 28.0 °C 35 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
14 Oct 27.2 °C 33 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
15 Oct 29.5 °C 30 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
16 Oct 30.5 °C 27 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
17 Oct 29.9 °C 31 % 42 km/h 0.1 mm High 31
18 Oct 29.7 °C 34 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
19 Oct after 29.8 °C 36 % 35 km/h 1.5 mm Moderate 16

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 6 Oct 2018
After · 25 Oct 2018

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 · 85Every 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 Nyasa fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 13 October 2018 and 18 October 2018: 6 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 3,265 hectares (32.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Nyasa (3,289 ha, 1.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.5 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 31, 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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 85 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.