How long did the Songea fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 24 August 2026 to 8 September 2026 (16 days). The perimeter dates it from 29 August 2026 to 5 September 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,080 hectares (60.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Songea (6,122 ha, 0.4 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 28.4 °C, humidity dropped to 33 % and gusts hit 45 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.

TZ · Tanzania · 2026-08-24 → 2026-09-08

Songea fire, 24 August 2026 Songea

Out · last detection 8 Sept 2026, 12:17 UTC

The fire started on 24 August 2026 in Songea, Tanzania, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,080 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 19th largest in Ruvuma since 2016 (of 92 with a page). Number 51 in Tanzania in 2026, of 200.

Burnt area: 6,080ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 16days; 24 Aug 2026 – 8 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 24 Aug; 2026
Heat detections: 141; in a single hotspot: 44 MW
Danger at start: 25; High · FWI index
Energy released: 1.6GW; sum of detected power

Play back 8 Sept 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Aug8 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

242526293031123458

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

45km/h · peak gust

33%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 18 Sept.

This area had burned before

46% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,583 ha in 2017, 280 ha in 2019, 399 ha in 2021, 1,060 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,779 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Songea where it started

6,122 ha reached on 24 Aug

0.4 %

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 Aug	27.2 °C	40 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
25 Aug	28.3 °C	36 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
26 Aug	27.9 °C	40 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
27 Aug	24.6 °C	50 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
28 Aug	25.8 °C	49 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
29 Aug	26.2 °C	39 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
30 Aug	26.2 °C	46 %	40 km/h	0.1 mm	High 26
31 Aug	26.1 °C	52 %	36 km/h	1.0 mm	Moderate 16
1 Sept	27.7 °C	41 %	40 km/h	0.3 mm	High 24
2 Sept	27.6 °C	36 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
3 Sept	28.2 °C	33 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
4 Sept	28.2 °C	40 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
5 Sept	28.4 °C	43 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
6 Sept	27.1 °C	48 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
7 Sept	27.3 °C	39 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
8 Sept	25.9 °C	43 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
9 Sept after	25.0 °C	44 %	44 km/h	0.1 mm	High 31
10 Sept after	26.6 °C	51 %	40 km/h	0.4 mm	High 26
11 Sept after	27.7 °C	45 %	35 km/h	0.3 mm	High 25
12 Sept after	28.1 °C	42 %	34 km/h	0.3 mm	High 25
13 Sept after	28.0 °C	42 %	40 km/h	0.1 mm	High 27
14 Sept after	27.7 °C	42 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
15 Sept after	28.3 °C	35 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
16 Sept after	27.5 °C	33 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
17 Sept after	27.2 °C	44 %	48 km/h	0.8 mm	High 25
18 Sept after	26.5 °C	48 %	41 km/h	1.1 mm	Moderate 18

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 17 Aug 2026

After · 15 Sept 2026

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 6 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 56 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 39: 2.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak56 µg/m³

Days over the guideline19 days

PM1058 µg/m³

Optical depth0.77

WHO 15

222324252627282930311234567891011

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 · 141Every 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 Songea fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 24 August 2026 to 8 September 2026 (16 days). The perimeter dates it from 29 August 2026 to 5 September 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,080 hectares (60.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Songea (6,122 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 28.4 °C, humidity dropped to 33 % and gusts hit 45 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

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