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Mavago fire, 8 September 2017 Mavago

Out · last detection 17 Sept 2017, 11:26 UTC

The fire started on 8 September 2017 in Mavago, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,894 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 114th largest in Niassa since 2016 (of 567 with a page). Number 41 in Mozambique in 2017, of 196.

Burnt area
6,894ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
8 Sept 2017 – 17 Sept 2017
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
8 Sept
2017
Heat detections
214
in a single hotspot: 119 MW
Danger at start
33
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

17 Sept 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Sept17 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

891011121314151617

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
37km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

6% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 401 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Mavago where it started
    6,928 ha reached on 6 Sept
    0.8 %

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)
8 Sept 29.6 °C 37 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
9 Sept 30.6 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
10 Sept 29.9 °C 33 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
11 Sept 30.4 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
12 Sept 31.1 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
13 Sept 31.8 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
14 Sept 31.3 °C 24 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
15 Sept 31.5 °C 31 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
16 Sept 31.9 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
17 Sept 33.2 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
18 Sept after 32.4 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
19 Sept after 31.0 °C 41 % 38 km/h 0.2 mm High 36
20 Sept after 31.8 °C 34 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
21 Sept after 32.3 °C 28 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
22 Sept after 31.9 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
23 Sept after 31.3 °C 35 % 30 km/h 0.1 mm High 34
24 Sept after 30.6 °C 37 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
25 Sept after 29.8 °C 42 % 34 km/h 0.2 mm High 33
26 Sept after 32.7 °C 31 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
27 Sept after 33.4 °C 27 % 32 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 · 1 Sept 2017
After · 24 Sept 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 · 214Every 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 Mavago fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 8 September 2017 and 17 September 2017: 10 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 6,894 hectares (68.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mavago (6,928 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.2 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, 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.