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Mecula fire, 7 July 2018 Mecula

Out · last detection 16 Jul 2018, 23:09 UTC

The fire started on 7 July 2018 in Mecula, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,310 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 457th largest in Niassa since 2016 (of 567 with a page). Number 170 in Mozambique in 2018, of 220.

The power measured by the satellite is low (13.3 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
3,310ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
7 Jul 2018 – 16 Jul 2018
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
7 Jul
2018
Heat detections
90
in a single hotspot: 13 MW
Danger at start
36
High · FWI index
Energy released
229MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

16 Jul 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Jul16 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

789101213141516

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
46km/h · peak gust
27%lowest humidity

It had gone 43 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

49% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,623 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Mecula where it started
    3,328 ha reached on 6 Jul
    0.2 %

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 Jul 29.9 °C 37 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
8 Jul 29.7 °C 36 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
9 Jul 29.9 °C 36 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
10 Jul 30.2 °C 34 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
11 Jul 29.7 °C 36 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
12 Jul 30.4 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
13 Jul 29.4 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
14 Jul 29.6 °C 36 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
15 Jul 31.0 °C 30 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
16 Jul 28.3 °C 32 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
17 Jul after 26.2 °C 47 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
18 Jul after 26.5 °C 40 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
19 Jul after 27.7 °C 36 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
20 Jul after 28.5 °C 31 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
21 Jul after 28.6 °C 33 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
22 Jul after 30.1 °C 28 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
23 Jul after 29.3 °C 30 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
24 Jul after 28.1 °C 38 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
25 Jul after 29.4 °C 34 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
26 Jul after 29.1 °C 31 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 33

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 30 Jun 2018
After · 23 Jul 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 · 90Every 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 Mecula fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 7 July 2018 and 16 July 2018: 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 3,310 hectares (33.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mecula (3,328 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.0 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 46 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.