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Meconta fire, October 2022 Meconta, Mogovolas

Out · last detection 16 Oct 2022, 11:44 UTC

The fire started on 5 October 2022 in Meconta, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,459 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 124th largest in Nampula since 2016 (of 392 with a page). Number 72 in Mozambique in 2022, of 206.

Burnt area
5,459ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
5 Oct 2022 – 16 Oct 2022
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
5 Oct
2022
Heat detections
160
in a single hotspot: 36 MW
Danger at start
36
High · FWI index
Energy released
971MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

16 Oct 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Oct16 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

56789101213141516

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
43km/h · peak gust
29%lowest humidity

It had gone 39 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 19 Oct.

This area had burned before

60% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 867 ha in 2016, 617 ha in 2017, 2,748 ha in 2018, 705 ha in 2019, 622 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,300 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Meconta where it started
    3,901 ha reached on 4 Oct
    1.0 %
  2. Mogovolas
    1,595 ha reached on 8 Oct
    0.3 %

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)
5 Oct 33.4 °C 34 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
6 Oct 33.7 °C 31 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
7 Oct 33.3 °C 32 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
8 Oct 32.8 °C 38 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
9 Oct 33.1 °C 34 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
10 Oct 32.5 °C 33 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
11 Oct 32.5 °C 36 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
12 Oct 32.3 °C 38 % 30 km/h 0.1 mm High 34
13 Oct 33.6 °C 32 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
14 Oct 33.8 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
15 Oct 32.7 °C 31 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
16 Oct 32.4 °C 31 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
17 Oct after 32.4 °C 35 % 27 km/h 0.1 mm High 34
18 Oct after 31.8 °C 47 % 31 km/h 0.9 mm High 23
19 Oct after 32.0 °C 42 % 31 km/h 1.0 mm High 23

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Sept 2022
After · 23 Oct 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.

Detections table · 160Every 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 Meconta fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 October 2022 and 16 October 2022: 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 5,459 hectares (54.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Meconta (3,901 ha, 1.0 %); Mogovolas (1,595 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.8 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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.