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Urambo fire, 11 August 2026 Urambo

Out · last detection 28 Aug 2026, 12:23 UTC

The fire started on 11 August 2026 in Urambo, Tanzania, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,738 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 12th largest in Tabora since 2016 (of 44 with a page). Number 81 in Tanzania in 2026, of 196.

Burnt area
4,738ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
19days
11 Aug 2026 – 29 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
11 Aug
2026
Heat detections
120
in a single hotspot: 70 MW
Danger at start
38
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

28 Aug 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Aug29 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

131516192021222425262728

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
43km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

67% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 554 ha in 2019, 443 ha in 2020, 196 ha in 2022, 1,764 ha in 2023, 1,480 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,160 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Urambo where it started
    4,773 ha reached on 13 Aug
    0.9 %

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)
11 Aug 31.7 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
12 Aug 32.3 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
13 Aug 31.0 °C 18 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
14 Aug 30.7 °C 28 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
15 Aug 29.6 °C 31 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
16 Aug 30.2 °C 31 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
17 Aug 30.5 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
18 Aug 31.4 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
19 Aug 31.2 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
20 Aug 29.9 °C 30 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
21 Aug 31.1 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
22 Aug 31.0 °C 28 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
23 Aug 30.5 °C 33 % 33 km/h 0.1 mm High 37
24 Aug 32.5 °C 28 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
25 Aug 31.9 °C 25 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
26 Aug 33.2 °C 19 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
27 Aug 31.8 °C 24 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
28 Aug 31.1 °C 25 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
29 Aug 31.1 °C 26 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
30 Aug after 31.5 °C 25 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
31 Aug after 31.8 °C 26 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
1 Sept after 32.3 °C 25 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
2 Sept after 32.7 °C 20 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
3 Sept after 33.0 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
4 Sept after 33.2 °C 24 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
5 Sept after 35.5 °C 21 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
6 Sept after 33.4 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
7 Sept after 32.1 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
8 Sept after 31.3 °C 27 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Aug 2026
After · 5 Sept 2026

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 20 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 47 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 28: 1.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak47 µg/m³
Days over the guideline11 days
PM1049 µg/m³
Optical depth0.67
9101112131415161718192021222324252627282930311
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 · 120Every 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 Urambo fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 11 August 2026 to 29 August 2026 (19 days). The perimeter dates it from 18 August 2026 to 29 August 2026.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 4,738 hectares (47.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Urambo (4,773 ha, 0.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.2 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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

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.