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Macossa fire, August 2024 Macossa, Bárue

Out · last detection 21 Aug 2024, 10:47 UTC

The fire started on 10 August 2024 in Macossa, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,919 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 71th largest in Manica since 2016 (of 198 with a page). Number 63 in Mozambique in 2024, of 150.

Burnt area
4,919ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
11days
10 Aug 2024 – 20 Aug 2024
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
10 Aug
2024
Heat detections
159
in a single hotspot: 268 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Energy released
3.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

21 Aug 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Aug20 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

101112131415161718192021

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
45km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 42 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.1 mm on 23 Aug.

This area had burned before

98% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,080 ha in 2016, 2,579 ha in 2017, 2,290 ha in 2018, 1,756 ha in 2019, 1,985 ha in 2020, 899 ha in 2021, 937 ha in 2022, 1,340 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,806 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Macossa where it started
    3,625 ha reached on 10 Aug
    0.4 %
  2. Bárue
    1,314 ha reached on 11 Aug
    0.2 %

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)
10 Aug 31.2 °C 20 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
11 Aug 30.7 °C 21 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
12 Aug 31.6 °C 17 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
13 Aug 27.4 °C 35 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
14 Aug 31.6 °C 23 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
15 Aug 30.4 °C 30 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
16 Aug 26.7 °C 35 % 37 km/h 1.0 mm High 26
17 Aug 26.6 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
18 Aug 27.3 °C 32 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
19 Aug 26.9 °C 28 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
20 Aug 25.9 °C 41 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
21 Aug after 26.7 °C 30 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
22 Aug after 27.9 °C 30 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
23 Aug after 19.3 °C 62 % 41 km/h 2.1 mm Low 9

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Aug 2024
After · 27 Aug 2024

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 14 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 65 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 39: 2.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak65 µg/m³
Days over the guideline8 days
PM1094 µg/m³
Optical depth1.02
891011121314151617181920212223
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 159Every 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 Macossa fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 10 August 2024 and 20 August 2024: 11 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 4,919 hectares (49.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Macossa (3,625 ha, 0.4 %); Bárue (1,314 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.6 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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.