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Mavago fire, 9 October 2018 Mavago

Out · last detection 23 Oct 2018, 11:07 UTC

The fire started on 9 October 2018 in Mavago, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,983 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 318th largest in Niassa since 2016 (of 567 with a page). Number 120 in Mozambique in 2018, of 220.

Burnt area
3,983ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
15days
9 Oct 2018 – 23 Oct 2018
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
9 Oct
2018
Heat detections
121
in a single hotspot: 67 MW
Danger at start
28
High · FWI index
Energy released
675MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

23 Oct 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Oct23 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

911121314151617192123

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
54km/h · peak gust
28%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

40% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,577 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Mavago where it started
    4,010 ha reached on 9 Oct
    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)
9 Oct 28.3 °C 45 % 37 km/h 0.1 mm High 28
10 Oct 30.0 °C 43 % 36 km/h 0.6 mm High 24
11 Oct 30.1 °C 37 % 30 km/h 0.2 mm High 26
12 Oct 31.2 °C 37 % 32 km/h 0.2 mm High 27
13 Oct 31.4 °C 37 % 32 km/h 0.1 mm High 27
14 Oct 31.0 °C 33 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
15 Oct 33.0 °C 35 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
16 Oct 34.1 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
17 Oct 33.0 °C 34 % 37 km/h 0.1 mm High 35
18 Oct 32.2 °C 41 % 36 km/h 0.3 mm High 32
19 Oct 32.6 °C 39 % 31 km/h 0.7 mm High 25
20 Oct 32.6 °C 39 % 31 km/h 1.9 mm Moderate 15
21 Oct 28.2 °C 53 % 48 km/h 3.0 mm Low 8
22 Oct 25.1 °C 48 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
23 Oct 27.5 °C 35 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
24 Oct after 28.6 °C 31 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
25 Oct after 30.6 °C 32 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
26 Oct after 29.2 °C 37 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
27 Oct after 29.1 °C 41 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
28 Oct after 29.8 °C 39 % 34 km/h 0.8 mm High 24
29 Oct after 30.0 °C 29 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
30 Oct after 29.6 °C 38 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
31 Oct after 32.8 °C 31 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
1 Nov after 33.5 °C 31 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
2 Nov after 33.5 °C 33 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 32

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 Oct 2018
After · 30 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 · 121Every 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 9 October 2018 and 23 October 2018: 15 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 3,983 hectares (39.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mavago (4,010 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.1 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 35, 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

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.