How long did the Nyasa fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 31 October 2021 to 13 November 2021 (14 days). The perimeter dates it from 1 November 2021 to 7 November 2021.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,815 hectares (38.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Nyasa (3,845 ha, 1.2 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 25.3 °C, humidity dropped to 35 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 20, class Moderate.

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 · 2021-10-31 → 2021-11-13

Nyasa fire, October 2021 Nyasa

Out · last detection 13 Nov 2021, 23:11 UTC

The fire started on 31 October 2021 in Nyasa, Tanzania, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,815 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 54th largest in Ruvuma since 2016 (of 94 with a page). Number 87 in Tanzania in 2021, of 135.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Nyasa · 2019 Nyasa · 2016 Nyasa · 2018 Nyasa · 2017

Burnt area: 3,815ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 14days; 31 Oct 2021 – 13 Nov 2021
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 31 Oct; 2021
Heat detections: 156; in a single hotspot: 33 MW
Danger at start: 15; Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power: 73MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 31 Oct13 Nov

Play back 13 Nov 2021

How it evolved, day by day

31 Oct 2 Nov 4 Nov 6 Nov 8 Nov 10 Nov 12 Nov

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

The weather it burned in

25°high

36km/h · peak gust

35%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

72% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,857 ha in 2016, 673 ha in 2017, 81 ha in 2018, 1,813 ha in 2019, 717 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,751 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 2.4% of the area of London (38 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

Nyasa where it started

3,845 ha reached on 31 Oct

1.2 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area 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 Nov	23.8 °C	50 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 15
2 Nov	25.0 °C	44 %	28 km/h	0.2 mm	Moderate 16
3 Nov	24.9 °C	46 %	29 km/h	0.6 mm	Moderate 15
4 Nov	24.7 °C	44 %	33 km/h	0.5 mm	Moderate 17
5 Nov	25.2 °C	35 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
6 Nov	25.0 °C	40 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
7 Nov	25.3 °C	38 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
8 Nov	24.7 °C	39 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
9 Nov	25.3 °C	36 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
10 Nov	25.2 °C	45 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
11 Nov	24.8 °C	40 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
12 Nov	25.3 °C	41 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
13 Nov	24.9 °C	41 %	31 km/h	0.2 mm	High 23
14 Nov after	24.9 °C	40 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
15 Nov after	24.7 °C	39 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
16 Nov after	24.8 °C	36 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
17 Nov after	24.5 °C	36 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 24 Oct 2021

After · 20 Nov 2021

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.

Detections table · 156Every 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

Other fires nearby

All fires in Tanzania ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Nyasa fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 31 October 2021 to 13 November 2021 (14 days). The perimeter dates it from 1 November 2021 to 7 November 2021.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,815 hectares (38.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Nyasa (3,845 ha, 1.2 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 25.3 °C, humidity dropped to 35 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 20, class Moderate.
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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 1 November 2021 to 7 November 2021. 156 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.

Where it burned