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Songwe fire, August 2019 Songwe

Out · last detection 20 Aug 2019, 23:09 UTC

The fire started on 8 August 2019 in Songwe, Tanzania, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,029 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 25th largest in Mbeya since 2016 (of 147 with a page). Number 35 in Tanzania in 2019, of 123.

Burnt area
7,029ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
13days
8 Aug 2019 – 20 Aug 2019
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
8 Aug
2019
Heat detections
247
in a single hotspot: 53 MW
Danger at start
28
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

20 Aug 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Aug20 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

891011121314151617181920

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

The weather it burned in

26°high
40km/h · peak gust
27%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

72% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,464 ha in 2016, 1,792 ha in 2017, 733 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,031 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Songwe where it started
    7,069 ha reached on 7 Aug
    0.6 %

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)
8 Aug 26.0 °C 35 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
9 Aug 26.1 °C 39 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
10 Aug 25.1 °C 35 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
11 Aug 24.7 °C 33 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
12 Aug 25.2 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
13 Aug 25.6 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
14 Aug 24.5 °C 29 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
15 Aug 24.8 °C 29 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
16 Aug 24.2 °C 31 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
17 Aug 24.9 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
18 Aug 24.9 °C 33 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
19 Aug 24.6 °C 29 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
20 Aug 24.7 °C 27 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
21 Aug after 24.6 °C 36 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
22 Aug after 24.3 °C 38 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
23 Aug after 25.3 °C 37 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
24 Aug after 26.7 °C 32 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
25 Aug after 25.8 °C 36 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
26 Aug after 26.8 °C 35 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
27 Aug after 26.9 °C 36 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
28 Aug after 27.0 °C 31 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
29 Aug after 26.4 °C 33 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
30 Aug after 27.1 °C 31 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 30

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Aug 2019
After · 27 Aug 2019

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 · 247Every 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 Songwe fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 8 August 2019 and 20 August 2019: 13 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 7,029 hectares (70.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Songwe (7,069 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 26.1 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, 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.