Burned area
satellite only7,136ha
Union of 2 GWIS (Copernicus) perimeters: overlapping areas count once.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 28 Jul 2026 – 19 Aug 2026
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
TZ · Tanzania · –
Uvinza fire, 28 July 2026 Uvinza
Out · last detection 20 Aug 2026, 11:34 UTC
The fire started on 28 July 2026 in Uvinza, Tanzania, and satellites saw it burning for 23 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,136 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
Number 49 in Tanzania in 2026, of 230.
GWIS near-real-time perimeter, from the layer that changed in August 2025: this fire is not compared with fires from earlier years, because since then the GWIS layer gives more and larger perimeters.
Use this data
Compare with…
Suggestions: Uvinza · 2019Uvinza · 2016Uvinza · 2025Uvinza · 2021
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-11-05matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only23days
28 Jul 2026 to 19 Aug 2026: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 20 Aug 2026, 11:34 UTC
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only28 Jul 2026
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 28 Jul 2026
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only198
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 120 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP + NOAA-20)
- Date
- 28 Jul 2026 – 19 Aug 2026
+− cross-check
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
The worst day
satellite only865MW
Total radiative power on 13 August 2026; hotspots that day: 32.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 13 Aug 2026
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model28.0FWI · high
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 51.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 28 Jul 2026, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model30.1°C · 30% RH
High of 30.1 °C and minimum humidity of 30% on 10 August 2026; gusts of 41 km/h on 19 August 2026.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 28 Jul 2026 – 19 Aug 2026
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
logLast day with fire: 14 August 2026 → 19 August 2026.
-
logStart date: 4 August 2026 → 28 July 2026.
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
What was saved on 5 November 2026
Every night a snapshot of what the page shows is saved. If anything changes, it appears in the list as a log entry.
- Area
- 7,262 ha
- Dates
- 28 Jul 2026 – 19 Aug 2026
- Name
- Uvinza
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/uvinza-2026-07-2?v=2026-11-05A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire uvinza-2026-07-2.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-07-28 | 1 | 11 | 28.6 | 14.8 | 31 | 10.1 | 27.4 | 0 | 28 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-07-29 | 0 | 0 | 29.4 | 16.1 | 29 | 9.9 | 27.7 | 0 | 30 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-07-30 | 0 | 0 | 28.3 | 16.5 | 35 | 8.8 | 25.2 | 0 | 30.7 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-07-31 | 3 | 3 | 29.4 | 15.7 | 33 | 12.7 | 33.5 | 0 | 35.2 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-01 | 3 | 25 | 28.1 | 17 | 33 | 13.7 | 36 | 0 | 32.8 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-02 | 1 | 2 | 28.4 | 14.4 | 32 | 11.2 | 30.2 | 0 | 29.7 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-03 | 12 | 74 | 29 | 14.8 | 31 | 10.5 | 28.1 | 0 | 29.3 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-04 | 10 | 270 | 28.8 | 16.9 | 34 | 13.9 | 37.4 | 0 | 35.7 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-05 | 17 | 488 | 28.7 | 18.7 | 34 | 12.7 | 33.5 | 0 | 31.1 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-06 | 17 | 90 | 29.2 | 16.6 | 33 | 11 | 30.2 | 0 | 31.7 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-07 | 8 | 126 | 29.5 | 19.1 | 34 | 10.6 | 30.6 | 0 | 29.8 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-08 | 6 | 228 | 29.2 | 18.7 | 33 | 12.5 | 33.5 | 0 | 34.6 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-09 | 23 | 401 | 29.2 | 16.2 | 31 | 11.4 | 31 | 0 | 31.8 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-10 | 3 | 42 | 30.1 | 15.3 | 30 | 8.9 | 24.5 | 0 | 28.6 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-11 | 12 | 28 | 29.5 | 15.7 | 29 | 10.2 | 28.1 | 0 | 28.6 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-12 | 9 | 43 | 30.1 | 16.8 | 29 | 9.2 | 23.8 | 0 | 31.3 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-13 | 32 | 865 | 29.8 | 17 | 20 | 11.7 | 32 | 0 | 44.2 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-14 | 32 | 822 | 29 | 16.9 | 33 | 13.3 | 36.7 | 0 | 38.7 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-15 | 2 | 13 | 28 | 17.6 | 32 | 12.9 | 34.9 | 0 | 32.8 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-16 | 0 | 0 | 28.9 | 17.5 | 31 | 13.8 | 36.7 | 0 | 33.3 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-17 | 0 | 0 | 29.3 | 17.4 | 31 | 13.9 | 37.4 | 0 | 33.3 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-18 | 1 | 0 | 30 | 19 | 29 | 13.9 | 37.4 | 0 | 36.7 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-19 | 5 | 33 | 30.1 | 18.1 | 29 | 15.4 | 41 | 0 | 35.8 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-20 | 1 | 5 | 28.9 | 18.6 | 29 | 12.3 | 31 | 0 | 32.6 | alto | 0 |
| 2026-08-21 | 0 | 0 | 30.1 | 18 | 28 | 13.4 | 36.4 | 0 | 35.8 | alto | 0 |
| 2026-08-22 | 0 | 0 | 29 | 17.7 | 31 | 13 | 35.3 | 0 | 32.8 | alto | 0 |
| 2026-08-23 | 0 | 0 | 28.6 | 18.8 | 37 | 11 | 28.8 | 0.1 | 31 | alto | 0 |
| 2026-08-24 | 0 | 0 | 30.3 | 19.6 | 32 | 11.4 | 30.6 | 0 | 32.8 | alto | 0 |
| 2026-08-25 | 0 | 0 | 29.9 | 19.4 | 31 | 10.6 | 30.2 | 0 | 31.6 | alto | 0 |
| 2026-08-26 | 0 | 0 | 31.4 | 19.5 | 26 | 11.3 | 32.4 | 0 | 35.5 | alto | 0 |
| 2026-08-27 | 0 | 0 | 30.6 | 19.2 | 27 | 13.2 | 36.7 | 0 | 38.6 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2026-08-28 | 0 | 0 | 30.3 | 18.9 | 28 | 12.1 | 33.1 | 0 | 35.1 | alto | 0 |
| 2026-08-29 | 0 | 0 | 29.4 | 18.8 | 27 | 14.2 | 37.8 | 0 | 39.4 | muy_alto | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: GWIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 7,136ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 23days
- 28 Jul 2026 – 19 Aug 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 28 Jul
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 198
- in a single hotspot: 120 MW
- Danger at start
- 28
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 178MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
28 Jul19 Aug
20 Aug 2026
How it evolved, day by day
28 Jul
3 Aug
7 Aug
13 Aug
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
30°high
41km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity
It had gone 51 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
99% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,600 ha in 2016, 1,465 ha in 2017, 1,141 ha in 2018, 5,297 ha in 2019, 655 ha in 2020, 1,138 ha in 2021, 8 ha in 2022, 697 ha in 2023, 2,163 ha in 2024, 4,505 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,043 ha that had burned before.
- 4,277 ha Uvinza fire, August 2019 10,514 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,898 ha Uvinza fire, August 2016 7,816 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 920 ha Uvinza fire, August 2025 23,667 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 786 ha Uvinza fire, September 2021 3,181 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 655 ha Uvinza fire, July 2025 3,890 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 584 ha Uvinza fire, August 2020 5,061 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 358 ha Uvinza fire, July 2019 3,171 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 356 ha Uvinza fire, August 2017 9,926 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
-
Uvinza where it started7,316 ha reached on 28 Jul0.7 %
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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 28 Jul | 28.6 °C | 31 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 29 Jul | 29.4 °C | 29 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 30 Jul | 28.3 °C | 35 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 31 Jul | 29.4 °C | 33 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 1 Aug | 28.1 °C | 33 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 2 Aug | 28.4 °C | 32 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 3 Aug | 29.0 °C | 31 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 4 Aug | 28.8 °C | 34 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 5 Aug | 28.7 °C | 34 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 6 Aug | 29.2 °C | 33 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 7 Aug | 29.5 °C | 34 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 8 Aug | 29.2 °C | 33 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 9 Aug | 29.2 °C | 31 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 10 Aug | 30.1 °C | 30 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 11 Aug | 29.5 °C | 29 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 12 Aug | 30.1 °C | 29 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 13 Aug | 29.8 °C | 20 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 14 Aug | 29.0 °C | 33 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 15 Aug | 28.0 °C | 32 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 16 Aug | 28.9 °C | 31 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 17 Aug | 29.3 °C | 31 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 18 Aug | 30.0 °C | 29 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 19 Aug | 30.1 °C | 29 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 20 Aug after | 28.9 °C | 29 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 21 Aug after | 30.1 °C | 28 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 22 Aug after | 29.0 °C | 31 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 23 Aug after | 28.6 °C | 37 % | 29 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 31 |
| 24 Aug after | 30.3 °C | 32 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 25 Aug after | 29.9 °C | 31 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 26 Aug after | 31.4 °C | 26 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 27 Aug after | 30.6 °C | 27 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 28 Aug after | 30.3 °C | 28 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 29 Aug after | 29.4 °C | 27 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 21 Jul 2026
After · 26 Aug 2026
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
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 11 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 96 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 56: 3.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
PM2.5 peak96 µg/m³
Days over the guideline15 days
PM10100 µg/m³
Optical depth0.79
WHO 15
2 Aug6 Aug10 Aug14 Aug
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 · 198Every 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
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Uvinza fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 28 July 2026 to 19 August 2026 (23 days). The perimeter dates it from 4 August 2026 to 14 August 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 7,136 hectares (71.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Uvinza (7,316 ha, 0.7 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 30.1 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 14 August 2026 → 19 August 2026.
- Start date: 4 August 2026 → 28 July 2026.
RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version
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 4 August 2026 to 14 August 2026. 198 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.
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.