How long did the Ulanga fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 15 October 2017 and 21 October 2017: 7 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 3,196 hectares (32.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Ulanga (3,214 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 36.2 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 30 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 35, 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 · 2017-10-15 → 2017-10-21

Ulanga fire, 15 October 2017 Ulanga

Out · last detection 22 Oct 2017, 10:30 UTC

The fire started on 15 October 2017 in Ulanga, Tanzania, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,196 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 117th largest in Morogoro since 2016 (of 136 with a page). Number 90 in Tanzania in 2017, of 104.

Burnt area: 3,196ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 7days; 15 Oct 2017 – 21 Oct 2017
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 15 Oct; 2017
Heat detections: 83; in a single hotspot: 74 MW
Danger at start: 29; High · FWI index
Energy released: 1.1GW; sum of detected power

Play back 22 Oct 2017

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Oct21 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

1516171819202122

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

The weather it burned in

36°high

30km/h · peak gust

29%lowest humidity

It had gone 10 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.9 mm on 24 Oct.

This area had burned before

9% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 279 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

Ulanga where it started

3,214 ha reached on 14 Oct

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)
15 Oct	32.7 °C	40 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
16 Oct	34.5 °C	34 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
17 Oct	36.2 °C	31 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
18 Oct	35.7 °C	33 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
19 Oct	35.3 °C	29 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
20 Oct	35.9 °C	31 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
21 Oct	35.8 °C	30 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
22 Oct after	34.6 °C	33 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
23 Oct after	37.6 °C	23 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
24 Oct after	33.2 °C	42 %	39 km/h	1.9 mm	Moderate 20

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 8 Oct 2017

After · 28 Oct 2017

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 · 83Every 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 Ulanga fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 15 October 2017 and 21 October 2017: 7 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 3,196 hectares (32.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Ulanga (3,214 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 36.2 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 30 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 35, 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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Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

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