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Songea fire, 20 October 2016 Songea

Out · last detection 27 Oct 2016, 22:26 UTC

The fire started on 20 October 2016 in Songea, Tanzania, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,184 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 39th largest in Ruvuma since 2016 (of 92 with a page). Number 86 in Tanzania in 2016, of 160.

Burnt area
4,184ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
20 Oct 2016 – 27 Oct 2016
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
20 Oct
2016
Heat detections
159
in a single hotspot: 64 MW
Danger at start
27
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

27 Oct 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Oct27 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

2021222324252627

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
41km/h · peak gust
31%lowest humidity

It had gone 14 days 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

  1. Songea where it started
    4,202 ha reached on 20 Oct
    0.3 %

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)
20 Oct 25.8 °C 31 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
21 Oct 27.1 °C 33 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
22 Oct 27.4 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
23 Oct 27.5 °C 34 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
24 Oct 27.7 °C 32 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
25 Oct 27.2 °C 35 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
26 Oct 25.8 °C 38 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
27 Oct 27.0 °C 32 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
28 Oct after 27.5 °C 33 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
29 Oct after 27.6 °C 38 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
30 Oct after 29.6 °C 32 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
31 Oct after 29.9 °C 34 % 38 km/h 0.3 mm High 29
1 Nov after 30.2 °C 35 % 35 km/h 0.2 mm High 28
2 Nov after 30.3 °C 28 % 46 km/h 0.1 mm High 30
3 Nov after 29.3 °C 33 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
4 Nov after 28.1 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
5 Nov after 27.3 °C 40 % 39 km/h 0.2 mm High 30
6 Nov after 27.1 °C 39 % 45 km/h 0.5 mm High 31

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Oct 2016
After · 3 Nov 2016

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 · 159Every 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 Songea fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 20 October 2016 and 27 October 2016: 8 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 4,184 hectares (41.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Songea (4,202 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 27.7 °C, humidity dropped to 31 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 28, 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.