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Gilé fire, 14 October 2017 Gilé

Out · last detection 20 Oct 2017, 11:06 UTC

The fire started on 14 October 2017 in Gilé, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,268 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 270th largest in Zambézia since 2016 (of 842 with a page). Number 47 in Mozambique in 2017, of 196.

Burnt area
6,268ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
14 Oct 2017 – 19 Oct 2017
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
14 Oct
2017
Heat detections
216
in a single hotspot: 75 MW
Danger at start
26
High · FWI index
Energy released
3.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

20 Oct 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Oct19 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

14151617181920

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
42km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.4 mm on 28 Oct.

This area had burned before

44% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,780 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Gilé where it started
    6,308 ha reached on 9 Oct
    0.7 %

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)
14 Oct 27.0 °C 43 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
15 Oct 30.6 °C 32 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
16 Oct 35.0 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
17 Oct 37.3 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
18 Oct 37.5 °C 22 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
19 Oct 35.7 °C 35 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
20 Oct after 37.3 °C 22 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
21 Oct after 35.7 °C 33 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
22 Oct after 34.4 °C 35 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
23 Oct after 34.1 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
24 Oct after 34.5 °C 30 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
25 Oct after 36.3 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
26 Oct after 37.6 °C 23 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
27 Oct after 37.9 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
28 Oct after 34.5 °C 33 % 44 km/h 1.4 mm High 32

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Oct 2017
After · 26 Oct 2017

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 · 216Every 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 Gilé fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 14 October 2017 and 19 October 2017: 6 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 6,268 hectares (62.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Gilé (6,308 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.5 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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.