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Bárue fire, 6 September 2020 Bárue

Out · last detection 12 Sept 2020, 12:08 UTC

The fire started on 6 September 2020 in Bárue, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,249 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 163th largest in Manica since 2016 (of 198 with a page). Number 168 in Mozambique in 2020, of 193.

Burnt area
3,249ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
6 Sept 2020 – 12 Sept 2020
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
6 Sept
2020
Heat detections
93
in a single hotspot: 66 MW
Danger at start
9
Low · FWI index
Energy released
1.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

12 Sept 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Sept12 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

6789101112

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

The weather it burned in

27°high
47km/h · peak gust
36%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.5 mm on 22 Sept.

This area had burned before

95% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,343 ha in 2016, 1,443 ha in 2017, 706 ha in 2018, 1,964 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,096 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Bárue where it started
    3,266 ha reached on 6 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)
6 Sept 23.3 °C 45 % 47 km/h 0.9 mm Low 9
7 Sept 24.0 °C 43 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
8 Sept 23.4 °C 40 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
9 Sept 24.0 °C 41 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
10 Sept 26.7 °C 36 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
11 Sept 24.7 °C 40 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
12 Sept 27.0 °C 37 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
13 Sept after 26.3 °C 46 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
14 Sept after 29.6 °C 39 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
15 Sept after 31.7 °C 34 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
16 Sept after 31.0 °C 39 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
17 Sept after 33.7 °C 31 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
18 Sept after 29.8 °C 34 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
19 Sept after 31.0 °C 26 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
20 Sept after 31.2 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
21 Sept after 33.2 °C 24 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
22 Sept after 24.4 °C 53 % 58 km/h 3.5 mm Low 7

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 30 Aug 2020
After · 19 Sept 2020

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 · 93Every 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 Bárue fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 6 September 2020 and 12 September 2020: 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 3,249 hectares (32.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Bárue (3,266 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 27.0 °C, humidity dropped to 36 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 17, class Moderate.
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.