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Uvinza fire, August 2019 Uvinza

Out · last detection 24 Aug 2019, 10:50 UTC

The fire started on 13 August 2019 in Uvinza, Tanzania, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,514 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 27th largest in Katavi since 2016 (of 271 with a page). Number 16 in Tanzania in 2019, of 123.

Burnt area
10,514ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
13 Aug 2019 – 24 Aug 2019
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
13 Aug
2019
Heat detections
355
in a single hotspot: 52 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

24 Aug 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Aug24 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

131415161718192021222324

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
46km/h · peak gust
26%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.1 mm on 27 Aug.

This area had burned before

77% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 6,836 ha in 2016, 3,047 ha in 2017, 1,577 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 8,055 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Uvinza where it started
    10,591 ha reached on 12 Aug
    1.0 %

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)
13 Aug 30.0 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
14 Aug 29.3 °C 30 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
15 Aug 28.9 °C 28 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
16 Aug 28.6 °C 33 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
17 Aug 29.6 °C 33 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
18 Aug 30.2 °C 28 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
19 Aug 29.6 °C 32 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
20 Aug 29.8 °C 26 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
21 Aug 29.2 °C 30 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
22 Aug 28.7 °C 36 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
23 Aug 29.0 °C 39 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
24 Aug 30.7 °C 30 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
25 Aug after 28.4 °C 35 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
26 Aug after 30.3 °C 36 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
27 Aug after 29.5 °C 38 % 24 km/h 2.1 mm Low 10

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 6 Aug 2019
After · 31 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 · 355Every 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 Uvinza fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 13 August 2019 and 24 August 2019: 12 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 10,514 hectares (105.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Uvinza (10,591 ha, 1.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.7 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 46 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

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.