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Majune fire, 7 October 2022 Majune, Mavago

Out · last detection 29 Oct 2022, 22:08 UTC

The fire started on 7 October 2022 in Majune, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 22 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 53,253 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 3th largest in Niassa since 2016 (of 567 with a page). Number 4 in Mozambique in 2022, of 206.

Burnt area
53,253ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
22days
7 Oct 2022 – 28 Oct 2022
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
7 Oct
2022
Heat detections
2,347
in a single hotspot: 92 MW
Danger at start
38
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
16.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

29 Oct 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Oct28 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

7891011121314151617181920212223242526272829

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
41km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 45 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

71% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 12,197 ha in 2016, 9,499 ha in 2017, 8,365 ha in 2018, 4,280 ha in 2019, 22,862 ha in 2020, 2,165 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 37,646 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Majune where it started
    53,210 ha reached on 6 Oct
    4.7 %
  2. Mavago
    283 ha reached on 7 Oct
    0.0 %

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)
7 Oct 32.1 °C 21 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
8 Oct 32.6 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
9 Oct 31.5 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
10 Oct 32.0 °C 26 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
11 Oct 31.5 °C 24 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
12 Oct 31.1 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
13 Oct 31.7 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
14 Oct 32.0 °C 22 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
15 Oct 31.8 °C 26 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
16 Oct 30.7 °C 31 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
17 Oct 31.2 °C 29 % 30 km/h 0.1 mm High 37
18 Oct 30.8 °C 32 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
19 Oct 30.6 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
20 Oct 31.9 °C 26 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
21 Oct 32.0 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
22 Oct 32.5 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
23 Oct 32.6 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
24 Oct 33.7 °C 29 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
25 Oct 33.0 °C 31 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
26 Oct 33.3 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
27 Oct 33.5 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
28 Oct 34.5 °C 24 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
29 Oct after 33.9 °C 30 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
30 Oct after 32.5 °C 34 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
31 Oct after 35.1 °C 26 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm High 37
1 Nov after 34.0 °C 30 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
2 Nov after 32.1 °C 34 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
3 Nov after 32.5 °C 33 % 36 km/h 0.2 mm High 36
4 Nov after 32.6 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
5 Nov after 32.8 °C 31 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
6 Nov after 33.1 °C 29 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
7 Nov after 33.5 °C 31 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 30 Sept 2022
After · 4 Nov 2022

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 October 2022 the air beside the fire reached 121 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 66: 4.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak121 µg/m³
Days over the guideline16 days
PM10173 µg/m³
Optical depth1.39
5678910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031
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 · 2,347Every 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 Majune fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 7 October 2022 and 28 October 2022: 22 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 53,253 hectares (532.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Majune (53,210 ha, 4.7 %); Mavago (283 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.5 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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.