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Mecula fire, 1 August 2018 Mecula

Out · last detection 7 Aug 2018, 11:50 UTC

The fire started on 1 August 2018 in Mecula, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,459 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 421th largest in Niassa since 2016 (of 577 with a page). Number 153 in Mozambique in 2018, of 220.

Burnt area
3,459ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
1 Aug 2018 – 6 Aug 2018
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
1 Aug
2018
Heat detections
98
in a single hotspot: 42 MW
Danger at start
31
High · FWI index
Energy released
874MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

7 Aug 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Aug6 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

1234567

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
30km/h · peak gust
31%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

0% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 7 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Mecula where it started
    3,459 ha reached on 31 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)
1 Aug 29.6 °C 34 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
2 Aug 30.0 °C 35 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
3 Aug 30.0 °C 34 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
4 Aug 28.0 °C 34 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
5 Aug 30.9 °C 31 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
6 Aug 30.5 °C 36 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
7 Aug after 31.4 °C 33 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
8 Aug after 31.6 °C 36 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
9 Aug after 31.1 °C 26 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
10 Aug after 30.2 °C 37 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
11 Aug after 29.9 °C 34 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
12 Aug after 30.0 °C 38 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
13 Aug after 30.4 °C 33 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
14 Aug after 30.4 °C 33 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
15 Aug after 30.6 °C 36 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
16 Aug after 29.7 °C 36 % 26 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 · 25 Jul 2018
After · 13 Aug 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 · 98Every 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 1 August 2018 and 6 August 2018: 6 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 3,459 hectares (34.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mecula (3,459 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.9 °C, humidity dropped to 31 % and gusts hit 30 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 33, 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.