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Mecula fire, 13 July 2020 Mecula

Out · last detection 26 Jul 2020, 10:29 UTC

The fire started on 13 July 2020 in Mecula, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,035 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 153th largest in Niassa since 2016 (of 567 with a page). Number 60 in Mozambique in 2020, of 193.

Burnt area
6,035ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
13days
13 Jul 2020 – 25 Jul 2020
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
13 Jul
2020
Heat detections
147
in a single hotspot: 148 MW
Danger at start
31
High · FWI index
Energy released
941MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

26 Jul 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Jul25 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

151617181920212223242526

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
51km/h · peak gust
29%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

75% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,004 ha in 2016, 2 ha in 2017, 4,487 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,517 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mecula where it started
    6,066 ha reached on 15 Jul
    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)
13 Jul 29.8 °C 35 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
14 Jul 29.9 °C 34 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
15 Jul 29.5 °C 38 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
16 Jul 24.4 °C 42 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
17 Jul 24.5 °C 41 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
18 Jul 27.3 °C 36 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
19 Jul 28.0 °C 30 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
20 Jul 27.8 °C 30 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
21 Jul 29.3 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
22 Jul 26.8 °C 38 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
23 Jul 26.6 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
24 Jul 27.1 °C 35 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
25 Jul 28.0 °C 34 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
26 Jul after 26.4 °C 42 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
27 Jul after 27.5 °C 43 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
28 Jul after 27.4 °C 40 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
29 Jul after 29.5 °C 35 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
30 Jul after 29.8 °C 39 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
31 Jul after 29.0 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
1 Aug after 27.1 °C 35 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
2 Aug after 27.0 °C 43 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
3 Aug after 28.5 °C 40 % 34 km/h 0.1 mm High 30
4 Aug after 29.4 °C 35 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 28

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 6 Jul 2020
After · 1 Aug 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 · 147Every 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 13 July 2020 and 25 July 2020: 13 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 6,035 hectares (60.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mecula (6,066 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.9 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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.