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Chigubo fire, 17 September 2018 Chigubo

Out · last detection 20 Sept 2018, 11:23 UTC

The fire started on 17 September 2018 in Chigubo, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,060 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 11th largest in Gaza since 2016 (of 78 with a page). Number 52 in Mozambique in 2018, of 220.

Burnt area
6,060ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
17 Sept 2018 – 20 Sept 2018
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
17 Sept
2018
Heat detections
244
in a single hotspot: 54 MW
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

20 Sept 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Sept20 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

17181920

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
56km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 7 days 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.

What happened to each town

  1. Chigubo where it started
    6,106 ha reached on 17 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)
17 Sept 36.0 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
18 Sept 39.1 °C 17 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
19 Sept 38.6 °C 22 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
20 Sept 28.5 °C 51 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
21 Sept after 30.2 °C 45 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm High 28
22 Sept after 33.4 °C 38 % 42 km/h 0.2 mm High 34
23 Sept after 33.2 °C 35 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
24 Sept after 35.3 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
25 Sept after 35.0 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
26 Sept after 37.7 °C 26 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
27 Sept after 34.9 °C 33 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
28 Sept after 37.2 °C 21 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
29 Sept after 31.3 °C 43 % 68 km/h 0.8 mm Very high 40
30 Sept after 28.6 °C 33 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 37

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 10 Sept 2018
After · 27 Sept 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 · 244Every 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 Chigubo fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 17 September 2018 and 20 September 2018: 4 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 6,060 hectares (60.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Chigubo (6,106 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.1 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 60, class Extreme.
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.