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Mecula fire, 11 July 2020 Mecula

Out · last detection 15 Jul 2020, 23:22 UTC

The fire started on 11 July 2020 in Mecula, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,297 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 470th largest in Niassa since 2016 (of 577 with a page). Number 157 in Mozambique in 2020, of 193.

Burnt area
3,297ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
11 Jul 2020 – 15 Jul 2020
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
11 Jul
2020
Heat detections
97
in a single hotspot: 122 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Energy released
588MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

15 Jul 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Jul15 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

1112131415

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

The weather it burned in

30°high
42km/h · peak gust
32%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

66% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,504 ha in 2016, 48 ha in 2017, 1,561 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,163 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mecula where it started
    3,316 ha reached on 11 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)
11 Jul 30.5 °C 32 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
12 Jul 30.3 °C 37 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
13 Jul 30.2 °C 33 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
14 Jul 30.3 °C 37 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
15 Jul 30.5 °C 35 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
16 Jul after 25.3 °C 41 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
17 Jul after 25.1 °C 41 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
18 Jul after 27.6 °C 36 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
19 Jul after 29.2 °C 29 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
20 Jul after 28.6 °C 31 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
21 Jul after 30.1 °C 27 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
22 Jul after 27.5 °C 37 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
23 Jul after 27.0 °C 28 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
24 Jul after 27.6 °C 36 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
25 Jul after 28.7 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 37

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Jul 2020
After · 22 Jul 2020

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 · 97Every 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 11 July 2020 and 15 July 2020: 5 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 3,297 hectares (33.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mecula (3,316 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.5 °C, humidity dropped to 32 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, 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.