How long did the Majune fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 28 September 2018 and 9 October 2018: 12 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 4,875 hectares (48.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Majune (4,896 ha, 0.4 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 31.5 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, 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.

MZ · Mozambique · 2018-09-28 → 2018-10-09

Majune fire, 28 September 2018 Majune

Out · last detection 10 Oct 2018, 22:58 UTC

The fire started on 28 September 2018 in Majune, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,875 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 226th largest in Niassa since 2016 (of 577 with a page). Number 79 in Mozambique in 2018, of 220.

The power measured by the satellite is low (14.3 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Majune · 2022 Majune · 2019 Majune · 2025 Majune · 2020

Burnt area: 4,875ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 12days; 28 Sept 2018 – 9 Oct 2018
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 28 Sept; 2018
Heat detections: 166; in a single hotspot: 14 MW
Danger at start: 35; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 51MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Sept9 Oct

Play back 10 Oct 2018

How it evolved, day by day

28 Sept 30 Sept 2 Oct 4 Oct 6 Oct 8 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

32°high

38km/h · peak gust

24%lowest humidity

It had gone 22 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 10 Oct.

This area had burned before

23% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,127 ha in 2016.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 3.1% of the area of London (49 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

Majune where it started

4,896 ha reached on 28 Sept

0.4 %

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)
28 Sept	31.5 °C	24 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
29 Sept	31.1 °C	29 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
30 Sept	31.0 °C	26 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
1 Oct	28.1 °C	39 %	38 km/h	0.3 mm	High 32
2 Oct	29.5 °C	40 %	33 km/h	0.4 mm	High 29
3 Oct	30.1 °C	42 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
4 Oct	30.0 °C	39 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
5 Oct	29.3 °C	35 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
6 Oct	28.7 °C	35 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
7 Oct	29.8 °C	26 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
8 Oct	30.7 °C	24 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
9 Oct	28.7 °C	41 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
10 Oct after	28.7 °C	46 %	34 km/h	1.0 mm	Moderate 18

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 21 Sept 2018

After · 16 Oct 2018

Before After

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 · 166Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Mozambique ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Majune fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 28 September 2018 and 9 October 2018: 12 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 4,875 hectares (48.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Majune (4,896 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 31.5 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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 from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 166 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.

Where it burned