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Mecula fire, 9 October 2018 Mecula

Out · last detection 21 Oct 2018, 22:51 UTC

The fire started on 9 October 2018 in Mecula, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,034 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 66th largest in Niassa since 2016 (of 567 with a page). Number 33 in Mozambique in 2018, of 220.

Burnt area
9,034ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
9 Oct 2018 – 20 Oct 2018
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
9 Oct
2018
Heat detections
312
in a single hotspot: 115 MW
Danger at start
28
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

21 Oct 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Oct20 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

91011121314151617181921

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
37km/h · peak gust
28%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.8 mm on 21 Oct.

This area had burned before

17% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,423 ha in 2016, 75 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Mecula where it started
    9,100 ha reached on 8 Oct
    0.5 %

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 28.6 °C 45 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
10 Oct 30.4 °C 42 % 33 km/h 0.2 mm High 29
11 Oct 30.6 °C 36 % 30 km/h 0.2 mm High 28
12 Oct 31.2 °C 39 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
13 Oct 31.7 °C 37 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
14 Oct 31.5 °C 30 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
15 Oct 33.2 °C 35 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
16 Oct 34.4 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
17 Oct 33.2 °C 35 % 37 km/h 0.3 mm High 36
18 Oct 32.0 °C 42 % 35 km/h 0.3 mm High 31
19 Oct 32.8 °C 38 % 31 km/h 0.4 mm High 30
20 Oct 32.8 °C 39 % 30 km/h 1.5 mm Moderate 19
21 Oct after 28.4 °C 52 % 49 km/h 3.8 mm Low 8

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 Oct 2018
After · 27 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 · 312Every 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 9 October 2018 and 20 October 2018: 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 9,034 hectares (90.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mecula (9,100 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.4 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, 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.