Skip to content
worldfires
en
MZ · Mozambique · →

Lalaua fire, 28 August 2016 Lalaua

Out · last detection 22 Sept 2016, 10:35 UTC

The fire started on 28 August 2016 in Lalaua, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 26 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,351 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 48th largest in Nampula since 2016 (of 392 with a page). Number 26 in Mozambique in 2016, of 194.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Lalaua · 2024Lalaua · 2026Lalaua · 2026Malema · 2025

Burnt area
9,351ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
26days
28 Aug 2016 – 22 Sept 2016
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
28 Aug
2016
Heat detections
345
in a single hotspot: 77 MW
Danger at start
30
High · FWI index
Average daily power
183MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Aug22 Sept
22 Sept 2016

How it evolved, day by day

28 Aug 2016 · 35 MW · 7 30 Aug 2016 · 10 MW · 3 2 Sept 2016 · 12 MW · 2 3 Sept 2016 · 9 MW · 2 4 Sept 2016 · 35 MW · 4 5 Sept 2016 · 288 MW · 20 6 Sept 2016 · 360 MW · 25 7 Sept 2016 · 63 MW · 8 8 Sept 2016 · 401 MW · 45 9 Sept 2016 · 379 MW · 30 10 Sept 2016 · 67 MW · 17 11 Sept 2016 · 302 MW · 42 12 Sept 2016 · 252 MW · 30 13 Sept 2016 · 1,014 MW · 78 14 Sept 2016 · 91 MW · 22 15 Sept 2016 · 18 MW · 3 16 Sept 2016 · 122 MW · 3 17 Sept 2016 · 12 MW · 3 22 Sept 2016 · 8 MW · 1
28 Aug 3 Sept 6 Sept 9 Sept 12 Sept 13 Sept 15 Sept 22 Sept

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
37km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 29 Sept.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 5.9% of the area of London (94 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Lalaua where it started
    9,413 ha reached on 28 Aug
    2.1 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area 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)
3 Sept 26.5 °C 35 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
4 Sept 28.0 °C 32 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
5 Sept 28.8 °C 33 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
6 Sept 28.1 °C 37 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
7 Sept 27.6 °C 39 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
8 Sept 29.3 °C 39 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
9 Sept 29.5 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
10 Sept 30.7 °C 34 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
11 Sept 30.8 °C 31 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
12 Sept 30.0 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
13 Sept 30.1 °C 28 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
14 Sept 31.0 °C 32 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
15 Sept 29.9 °C 35 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
16 Sept 30.3 °C 32 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
17 Sept 30.8 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
18 Sept 29.7 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
19 Sept 29.6 °C 33 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
20 Sept 27.0 °C 41 % 36 km/h 0.4 mm High 32
21 Sept 28.8 °C 35 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
22 Sept 29.9 °C 33 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
23 Sept after 30.7 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
24 Sept after 31.5 °C 26 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
25 Sept after 33.3 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
26 Sept after 30.4 °C 30 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
27 Sept after 30.3 °C 36 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
28 Sept after 30.3 °C 34 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
29 Sept after 28.6 °C 49 % 34 km/h 1.1 mm Moderate 19

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 Aug 2016
After · 29 Sept 2016

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 · 345Every 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 Lalaua fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 28 August 2016 to 22 September 2016 (26 days). The perimeter dates it from 4 September 2016 to 15 September 2016.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 9,351 hectares (93.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Lalaua (9,413 ha, 2.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.0 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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

History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 15 September 2016 → 22 September 2016.
  2. Start date: 4 September 2016 → 28 August 2016.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 4 September 2016 to 15 September 2016. 345 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.