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Ancuabe fire, September 2019 Ancuabe

Out · last detection 22 Sept 2019, 11:44 UTC

The fire started on 16 September 2019 in Ancuabe, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,127 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 107th largest in Cabo Delgado since 2016 (of 120 with a page). Number 185 in Mozambique in 2019, of 212.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Ancuabe · 2026

Burnt area
3,127ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
16 Sept 2019 – 22 Sept 2019
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
16 Sept
2019
Heat detections
96
in a single hotspot: 79 MW
Danger at start
30
High · FWI index
Average daily power
86MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Sept22 Sept
22 Sept 2019

How it evolved, day by day

16 Sept 2019 · 38 MW · 21 17 Sept 2019 · 79 MW · 10 18 Sept 2019 · 54 MW · 11 19 Sept 2019 · 25 MW · 7 20 Sept 2019 · 287 MW · 25 22 Sept 2019 · 33 MW · 3
16 Sept 17 Sept 18 Sept 19 Sept 20 Sept 22 Sept

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
38km/h · peak gust
31%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 2% of the area of London (31 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Ancuabe where it started
    3,144 ha reached on 11 Sept
    0.6 %

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)
16 Sept 30.8 °C 34 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
17 Sept 32.4 °C 32 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
18 Sept 31.5 °C 35 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
19 Sept 31.0 °C 33 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
20 Sept 31.9 °C 31 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
21 Sept 31.0 °C 34 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
22 Sept 30.0 °C 35 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
23 Sept after 31.0 °C 35 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
24 Sept after 32.1 °C 30 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
25 Sept after 31.3 °C 30 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
26 Sept after 27.1 °C 43 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
27 Sept after 29.4 °C 35 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
28 Sept after 31.1 °C 34 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
29 Sept after 31.8 °C 37 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
30 Sept after 30.3 °C 52 % 36 km/h 0.4 mm High 27
1 Oct after 30.7 °C 54 % 36 km/h 0.9 mm Moderate 20
2 Oct after 32.0 °C 48 % 38 km/h 0.3 mm High 24

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Sept 2019
After · 29 Sept 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 · 96Every 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 Mozambique ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Ancuabe fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 16 September 2019 and 22 September 2019: 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 3,127 hectares (31.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Ancuabe (3,144 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.4 °C, humidity dropped to 31 % and gusts hit 38 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 Mozambique (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.

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.

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How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 96 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.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.