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Lugela fire, 2 October 2017 Lugela

Out · last detection 28 Oct 2017, 11:56 UTC

The fire started on 2 October 2017 in Lugela, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 27 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 31,184 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 51th largest in Zambézia since 2016 (of 842 with a page). Number 6 in Mozambique in 2017, of 196.

Burnt area
31,184ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
27days
2 Oct 2017 – 28 Oct 2017
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
2 Oct
2017
Heat detections
1,769
in a single hotspot: 198 MW
Danger at start
21
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
20.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

28 Oct 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Oct28 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

23456789101113141516171819202122232425262728

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
47km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 11.8 mm on 29 Oct.

This area had burned before

68% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 21,613 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Lugela where it started
    31,349 ha reached on 2 Oct
    5.1 %

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)
2 Oct 29.4 °C 45 % 26 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 21
3 Oct 31.4 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
4 Oct 32.1 °C 34 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
5 Oct 35.4 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
6 Oct 35.0 °C 23 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
7 Oct 34.9 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
8 Oct 34.0 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
9 Oct 34.8 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
10 Oct 35.3 °C 27 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
11 Oct 35.8 °C 29 % 47 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 45
12 Oct 28.8 °C 58 % 38 km/h 2.7 mm Low 8
13 Oct 29.5 °C 27 % 44 km/h 0.4 mm High 30
14 Oct 24.7 °C 48 % 36 km/h 0.5 mm High 24
15 Oct 30.0 °C 29 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
16 Oct 36.3 °C 14 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
17 Oct 38.4 °C 14 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
18 Oct 37.2 °C 20 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
19 Oct 34.6 °C 35 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
20 Oct 37.9 °C 16 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
21 Oct 34.5 °C 26 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
22 Oct 31.6 °C 51 % 39 km/h 1.7 mm Moderate 14
23 Oct 32.1 °C 36 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
24 Oct 34.6 °C 23 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
25 Oct 36.0 °C 25 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
26 Oct 37.5 °C 21 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
27 Oct 38.9 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
28 Oct 32.7 °C 43 % 40 km/h 7.3 mm Low 8
29 Oct after 23.4 °C 71 % 46 km/h 11.8 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Sept 2017
After · 4 Nov 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 · 1,769Every 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 2 October 2017 and 28 October 2017: 27 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 31,184 hectares (311.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Lugela (31,349 ha, 5.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.9 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 55, 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.