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Balama fire, 7 August 2018 Balama

Out · last detection 17 Aug 2018, 10:22 UTC

The fire started on 7 August 2018 in Balama, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,515 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 82th largest in Cabo Delgado since 2016 (of 120 with a page). Number 146 in Mozambique in 2018, of 220.

Burnt area
3,515ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
7 Aug 2018 – 16 Aug 2018
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
7 Aug
2018
Heat detections
134
in a single hotspot: 55 MW
Danger at start
28
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

17 Aug 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Aug16 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

7891114151617

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
40km/h · peak gust
32%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 41 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Balama where it started
    3,531 ha reached on 1 Aug
    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)
7 Aug 29.3 °C 39 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
8 Aug 29.5 °C 38 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
9 Aug 29.2 °C 33 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
10 Aug 27.8 °C 41 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
11 Aug 28.8 °C 32 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
12 Aug 28.7 °C 38 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
13 Aug 28.2 °C 36 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
14 Aug 28.4 °C 37 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
15 Aug 28.5 °C 34 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
16 Aug 28.2 °C 34 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
17 Aug after 28.7 °C 34 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
18 Aug after 28.6 °C 29 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
19 Aug after 26.3 °C 43 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
20 Aug after 28.1 °C 40 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
21 Aug after 27.9 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
22 Aug after 27.8 °C 30 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
23 Aug after 28.2 °C 40 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
24 Aug after 28.1 °C 38 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
25 Aug after 29.0 °C 31 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
26 Aug after 29.6 °C 29 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 34

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 31 Jul 2018
After · 23 Aug 2018

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 · 134Every 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 Balama fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 7 August 2018 and 16 August 2018: 10 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 3,515 hectares (35.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Balama (3,531 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.5 °C, humidity dropped to 32 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, 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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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.