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MZ · Mozambique · →

Mecula fire, 25 October 2019 Mecula

Out · last detection 30 Oct 2019, 22:39 UTC

The fire started on 25 October 2019 in Mecula, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,594 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 250th largest in Niassa since 2016 (of 567 with a page). Number 86 in Mozambique in 2019, of 212.

Burnt area
4,594ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
25 Oct 2019 – 30 Oct 2019
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
25 Oct
2019
Heat detections
154
in a single hotspot: 63 MW
Danger at start
33
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

30 Oct 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 25 Oct30 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

252627282930

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
36km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.3 mm on 7 Nov.

This area had burned before

50% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 340 ha in 2016, 813 ha in 2017, 1,969 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,310 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mecula where it started
    4,630 ha reached on 23 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)
25 Oct 34.8 °C 35 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
26 Oct 35.2 °C 28 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
27 Oct 35.9 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
28 Oct 36.8 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
29 Oct 35.7 °C 19 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
30 Oct 35.6 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
31 Oct after 35.9 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
1 Nov after 35.2 °C 28 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
2 Nov after 35.3 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
3 Nov after 34.6 °C 39 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
4 Nov after 33.1 °C 40 % 31 km/h 0.3 mm High 32
5 Nov after 33.9 °C 37 % 30 km/h 0.3 mm High 32
6 Nov after 34.3 °C 36 % 38 km/h 0.1 mm High 35
7 Nov after 35.0 °C 34 % 48 km/h 2.3 mm High 24

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 18 Oct 2019
After · 6 Nov 2019

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 · 154Every 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 25 October 2019 and 30 October 2019: 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 4,594 hectares (45.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mecula (4,630 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.8 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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.