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Funhalouro fire, October 2022 Funhalouro

Out · last detection 9 Oct 2022, 12:13 UTC

The fire started on 1 October 2022 in Funhalouro, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,220 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 20th largest in Inhambane since 2016 (of 26 with a page). Number 180 in Mozambique in 2022, of 206.

Burnt area
3,220ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
1 Oct 2022 – 8 Oct 2022
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
1 Oct
2022
Heat detections
124
in a single hotspot: 161 MW
Danger at start
36
High · FWI index
Average daily power
316MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

9 Oct 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Oct8 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

1 Oct 2022 · 12 MW · 3 2 Oct 2022 · 17 MW · 2 3 Oct 2022 · 57 MW · 8 4 Oct 2022 · 442 MW · 24 5 Oct 2022 · 324 MW · 27 6 Oct 2022 · 1,068 MW · 28 7 Oct 2022 · 902 MW · 29 8 Oct 2022 · 9 MW · 1 9 Oct 2022 · 8 MW · 2
1 Oct 3 Oct 5 Oct 6 Oct 7 Oct 9 Oct

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
41km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 17 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

90% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,082 ha in 2018, 914 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,908 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Funhalouro where it started
    3,238 ha reached on 1 Oct
    0.2 %

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)
1 Oct 33.3 °C 34 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
2 Oct 33.3 °C 35 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
3 Oct 33.6 °C 42 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
4 Oct 35.7 °C 33 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
5 Oct 34.1 °C 36 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm High 36
6 Oct 36.1 °C 32 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
7 Oct 37.7 °C 21 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
8 Oct 33.7 °C 39 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
9 Oct after 35.3 °C 35 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
10 Oct after 33.2 °C 40 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
11 Oct after 31.5 °C 48 % 29 km/h 0.3 mm High 30
12 Oct after 34.0 °C 42 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
13 Oct after 33.8 °C 39 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
14 Oct after 33.6 °C 31 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
15 Oct after 32.6 °C 37 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
16 Oct after 33.6 °C 32 % 31 km/h 0.1 mm High 36
17 Oct after 32.1 °C 43 % 30 km/h 0.2 mm High 34
18 Oct after 33.3 °C 38 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 36

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Sept 2022
After · 15 Oct 2022

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 · 124Every 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 Funhalouro fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 October 2022 and 8 October 2022: 8 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 3,220 hectares (32.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Funhalouro (3,238 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.7 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % 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 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.