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Lugela fire, 7 September 2018 Lugela, Namarrói, Molumbo

Out · last detection 11 Oct 2018, 11:31 UTC

The fire started on 7 September 2018 in Lugela, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 35 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 38,001 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 39th largest in Zambézia since 2016 (of 839 with a page). Number 4 in Mozambique in 2018, of 220.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Namarrói · 2016Lugela · 2017Lugela · 2017Lugela · 2017

Burnt area
38,001ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
35days
7 Sept 2018 – 11 Oct 2018
Municipalities hit
3
districts
Started on
7 Sept
2018
Heat detections
2,355
in a single hotspot: 170 MW
Danger at start
22
High · FWI index
Average daily power
950MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Sept11 Oct
11 Oct 2018

How it evolved, day by day

7 Sept 2018 · 202 MW · 14 8 Sept 2018 · 369 MW · 53 9 Sept 2018 · 1,650 MW · 153 12 Sept 2018 · 220 MW · 23 13 Sept 2018 · 164 MW · 21 14 Sept 2018 · 302 MW · 41 15 Sept 2018 · 816 MW · 91 16 Sept 2018 · 1,004 MW · 95 17 Sept 2018 · 1,037 MW · 88 18 Sept 2018 · 1,464 MW · 153 19 Sept 2018 · 3,295 MW · 279 20 Sept 2018 · 2,447 MW · 176 21 Sept 2018 · 3,983 MW · 298 22 Sept 2018 · 1,160 MW · 84 23 Sept 2018 · 349 MW · 46 24 Sept 2018 · 166 MW · 23 25 Sept 2018 · 340 MW · 34 26 Sept 2018 · 988 MW · 100 27 Sept 2018 · 3,269 MW · 158 28 Sept 2018 · 2,072 MW · 174 29 Sept 2018 · 4,205 MW · 155 30 Sept 2018 · 106 MW · 4 1 Oct 2018 · 24 MW · 2 2 Oct 2018 · 108 MW · 15 3 Oct 2018 · 111 MW · 10 4 Oct 2018 · 241 MW · 31 5 Oct 2018 · 55 MW · 8 6 Oct 2018 · 65 MW · 7 7 Oct 2018 · 57 MW · 7 9 Oct 2018 · 65 MW · 5 10 Oct 2018 · 61 MW · 6 11 Oct 2018 · 10 MW · 1
7 Sept 14 Sept 19 Sept 24 Sept 29 Sept 4 Oct 10 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

31°high
55km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.5 mm on 12 Oct.

This area had burned before

86% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 29,786 ha in 2016, 20,961 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 32,654 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 24% of the area of London (380 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. Lugela where it started
    29,927 ha reached on 7 Sept
    4.9 %
  2. Namarrói
    7,180 ha reached on 8 Sept
    2.3 %
  3. Molumbo
    1,064 ha reached on 8 Sept
    0.2 %

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.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020
Built-up area48 ha
Residents≈ 23,000

Inside the perimeter there were about 48 hectares of built-up land and about 23,000 residents (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
7 Sept 27.1 °C 29 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
8 Sept 27.4 °C 35 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
9 Sept 28.4 °C 32 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
10 Sept 19.0 °C 58 % 37 km/h 10.5 mm Very low 1
11 Sept 19.8 °C 67 % 24 km/h 0.2 mm Very low 2
12 Sept 25.0 °C 44 % 20 km/h 0.1 mm Low 6
13 Sept 27.5 °C 34 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
14 Sept 28.9 °C 34 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
15 Sept 29.5 °C 36 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
16 Sept 29.8 °C 26 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
17 Sept 28.5 °C 27 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
18 Sept 29.7 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
19 Sept 29.8 °C 28 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
20 Sept 30.5 °C 26 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
21 Sept 28.9 °C 24 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
22 Sept 25.9 °C 39 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
23 Sept 27.5 °C 33 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
24 Sept 27.9 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
25 Sept 28.8 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
26 Sept 30.7 °C 31 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
27 Sept 31.2 °C 26 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
28 Sept 29.8 °C 26 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
29 Sept 30.5 °C 26 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
30 Sept 25.2 °C 51 % 55 km/h 2.5 mm Low 9
1 Oct 22.7 °C 53 % 44 km/h 3.8 mm Very low 5
2 Oct 24.5 °C 48 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
3 Oct 28.6 °C 40 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
4 Oct 28.4 °C 33 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
5 Oct 25.9 °C 38 % 35 km/h 0.9 mm Moderate 16
6 Oct 23.9 °C 46 % 32 km/h 0.8 mm Moderate 13
7 Oct 24.7 °C 38 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
8 Oct 23.4 °C 50 % 36 km/h 1.5 mm Low 9
9 Oct 24.9 °C 48 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
10 Oct 26.2 °C 42 % 23 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 15
11 Oct 28.5 °C 36 % 29 km/h 1.3 mm Moderate 13
12 Oct after 26.4 °C 45 % 31 km/h 1.5 mm Low 9

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 31 Aug 2018
After · 18 Oct 2018

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 · 2,355Every 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?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 7 September 2018 to 11 October 2018 (35 days). The perimeter dates it from 13 September 2018 to 4 October 2018.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 38,001 hectares (380.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Lugela (29,927 ha, 4.9 %); Namarrói (7,180 ha, 2.3 %); Molumbo (1,064 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.2 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 32, 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: 4 October 2018 → 11 October 2018.
  2. Start date: 13 September 2018 → 7 September 2018.

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.

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How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 4 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 13 September 2018 to 4 October 2018. 2,355 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.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

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.