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Sikonge fire, July 2020 Sikonge

Out · last detection 28 Jul 2020, 11:33 UTC

The fire started on 24 July 2020 in Sikonge, Tanzania, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,527 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 30th largest in Tabora since 2016 (of 44 with a page). Number 137 in Tanzania in 2020, of 187.

Burnt area
3,527ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
24 Jul 2020 – 28 Jul 2020
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
24 Jul
2020
Heat detections
67
in a single hotspot: 99 MW
Danger at start
33
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

28 Jul 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Jul28 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

242628

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

The weather it burned in

28°high
37km/h · peak gust
33%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

9% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 153 ha in 2018, 147 ha in 2019.

What happened to each town

  1. Sikonge where it started
    3,549 ha reached on 24 Jul
    0.1 %

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)
24 Jul 27.8 °C 37 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
25 Jul 27.1 °C 36 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
26 Jul 27.5 °C 36 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
27 Jul 27.6 °C 36 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
28 Jul 28.0 °C 33 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
29 Jul after 28.4 °C 38 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
30 Jul after 29.2 °C 35 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
31 Jul after 29.9 °C 37 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
1 Aug after 29.3 °C 37 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
2 Aug after 28.1 °C 34 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
3 Aug after 28.4 °C 29 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
4 Aug after 28.7 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
5 Aug after 29.9 °C 35 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
6 Aug after 30.5 °C 34 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
7 Aug after 30.9 °C 29 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 17 Jul 2020
After · 4 Aug 2020

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 · 67Every 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 Sikonge fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 24 July 2020 and 28 July 2020: 5 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 3,527 hectares (35.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Sikonge (3,549 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 28.0 °C, humidity dropped to 33 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, 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.