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Lugela fire, 22 October 2016 Lugela

Out · last detection 1 Nov 2016, 22:34 UTC

The fire started on 22 October 2016 in Lugela, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,070 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 800th largest in Zambézia since 2016 (of 842 with a page). Number 185 in Mozambique in 2016, of 194.

Burnt area
3,070ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
22 Oct 2016 – 31 Oct 2016
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
22 Oct
2016
Heat detections
188
in a single hotspot: 78 MW
Danger at start
28
High · FWI index
Average daily power
116MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

1 Nov 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Oct31 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

22 Oct 2016 · 65 MW · 7 23 Oct 2016 · 42 MW · 1 24 Oct 2016 · 246 MW · 51 25 Oct 2016 · 77 MW · 12 26 Oct 2016 · 84 MW · 20 27 Oct 2016 · 404 MW · 26 28 Oct 2016 · 40 MW · 5 29 Oct 2016 · 84 MW · 5 31 Oct 2016 · 29 MW · 7 1 Nov 2016 · 92 MW · 17
22 Oct 24 Oct 26 Oct 27 Oct 28 Oct 31 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

36°high
37km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 17 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.2 mm on 1 Nov.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Lugela where it started
    3,086 ha reached on 18 Oct
    0.5 %

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)
22 Oct 34.4 °C 26 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
23 Oct 35.2 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
24 Oct 35.1 °C 23 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
25 Oct 34.9 °C 21 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
26 Oct 33.9 °C 24 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
27 Oct 34.6 °C 23 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
28 Oct 35.0 °C 26 % 29 km/h 2.7 mm Moderate 18
29 Oct 33.4 °C 33 % 25 km/h 2.3 mm Moderate 11
30 Oct 33.9 °C 30 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
31 Oct 36.2 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
1 Nov after 36.3 °C 27 % 40 km/h 1.2 mm High 33

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Oct 2016
After · 7 Nov 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 · 188Every 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 Lugela fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 22 October 2016 and 31 October 2016: 10 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 3,070 hectares (30.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Lugela (3,086 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.2 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, 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

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.