Ulanga fire, October 2025 Ulanga, Namtumbo
The fire started on 7 October 2025 in Ulanga, Tanzania, and satellites saw it burning for 30 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 26,732 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 5th largest in Morogoro since 2016 (of 137 with a page). Number 4 in Tanzania in 2025, of 161.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 26,732ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 30days
- 7 Oct 2025 – 5 Nov 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 7 Oct
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 852
- in a single hotspot: 47 MW
- Danger at start
- 33
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 152MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.5 mm on 12 Nov.
This area had burned before
92% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 6,759 ha in 2016, 1,394 ha in 2017, 255 ha in 2018, 19,954 ha in 2019, 94 ha in 2020, 13,771 ha in 2021, 370 ha in 2022, 20 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 24,564 ha that had burned before.
- 17,915 ha Ulanga fire, September 2019 35,204 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 7,231 ha Namtumbo fire, October 2021 11,332 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,271 ha Ulanga fire, November 2021 5,186 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,671 ha Ulanga fire, September 2021 83,831 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 969 ha Namtumbo fire, September 2017 3,172 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 370 ha Ulanga fire, November 2022 11,393 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 360 ha Ulanga fire, October 2017 6,694 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 161 ha Namtumbo fire, November 2016 5,427 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Ulanga where it started16,565 ha reached on 7 Oct0.7 %
-
10,336 ha reached on 10 Oct0.5 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 0.39 hectares of built-up land and about 150 residents (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13 Oct | 30.7 °C | 31 % | 30 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 33 |
| 14 Oct | 30.4 °C | 38 % | 32 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 31 |
| 15 Oct | 30.2 °C | 40 % | 27 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 29 |
| 16 Oct | 31.2 °C | 35 % | 31 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 31 |
| 17 Oct | 31.7 °C | 32 % | 29 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 31 |
| 18 Oct | 32.8 °C | 25 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 19 Oct | 31.3 °C | 39 % | 28 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 31 |
| 20 Oct | 32.4 °C | 29 % | 28 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 32 |
| 21 Oct | 32.7 °C | 36 % | 31 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 31 |
| 22 Oct | 32.2 °C | 39 % | 28 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 31 |
| 23 Oct | 30.8 °C | 41 % | 23 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 30 |
| 24 Oct | 32.3 °C | 34 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 25 Oct | 33.9 °C | 29 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 26 Oct | 33.6 °C | 36 % | 30 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 34 |
| 27 Oct | 34.5 °C | 35 % | 41 km/h | 0.3 mm | Very high 38 |
| 28 Oct | 34.4 °C | 28 % | 32 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 36 |
| 29 Oct | 33.2 °C | 32 % | 25 km/h | 0.7 mm | High 31 |
| 30 Oct | 31.2 °C | 37 % | 27 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 31 |
| 31 Oct | 34.0 °C | 25 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 1 Nov | 32.9 °C | 28 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 2 Nov | 32.7 °C | 28 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 3 Nov | 31.6 °C | 43 % | 33 km/h | 2.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 4 Nov | 31.1 °C | 44 % | 37 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 25 |
| 5 Nov | 33.6 °C | 37 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 6 Nov after | 33.4 °C | 37 % | 30 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 28 |
| 7 Nov after | 32.9 °C | 39 % | 33 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 30 |
| 8 Nov after | 34.3 °C | 33 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 9 Nov after | 32.2 °C | 41 % | 30 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 30 |
| 10 Nov after | 33.1 °C | 38 % | 31 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 32 |
| 11 Nov after | 34.6 °C | 31 % | 34 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 37 |
| 12 Nov after | 32.5 °C | 42 % | 35 km/h | 1.5 mm | Moderate 20 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 19 October 2025 the air beside the fire reached 37 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 22: 1.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 852Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 11,393 haUlangaNovember 2022 · 9 days · 13 km away
- 11,332 haNamtumbo13 October 2021 · 26 days · 14 km away
- 37,159 haUlanga19 September 2025 · 25 days · 18 km away
- 35,204 haUlanga7 September 2019 · 22 days · 18 km away
- 21,517 haUlanga9 November 2016 · 11 days · 23 km away
- 31,455 haUlangaSeptember 2018 · 35 days · 30 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Ulanga fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 7 October 2025 to 5 November 2025 (30 days). The perimeter dates it from 13 October 2025 to 5 November 2025.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 26,732 hectares (267.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Ulanga (16,565 ha, 0.7 %); Namtumbo (10,336 ha, 0.5 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 34.5 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, class Very 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›
Satellite cross-check
History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 13 October 2025 to 5 November 2025. 852 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.