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Mecula fire, 1 August 2020 Mecula

Out · last detection 11 Aug 2020, 10:29 UTC

The fire started on 1 August 2020 in Mecula, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 11,391 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 46th largest in Niassa since 2016 (of 567 with a page). Number 24 in Mozambique in 2020, of 193.

Burnt area
11,391ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
1 Aug 2020 – 10 Aug 2020
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
1 Aug
2020
Heat detections
343
in a single hotspot: 63 MW
Danger at start
36
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

11 Aug 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Aug10 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

1234567891011

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
40km/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

71% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,002 ha in 2016, 1,945 ha in 2017, 3,000 ha in 2018, 4,121 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 8,061 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mecula where it started
    11,455 ha reached on 1 Aug
    0.6 %

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 26.6 °C 35 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
2 Aug 26.5 °C 43 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
3 Aug 28.0 °C 40 % 34 km/h 0.1 mm High 29
4 Aug 28.9 °C 35 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
5 Aug 31.0 °C 33 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
6 Aug 30.5 °C 32 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
7 Aug 31.5 °C 32 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
8 Aug 28.3 °C 29 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
9 Aug 26.8 °C 32 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
10 Aug 28.8 °C 31 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
11 Aug after 28.2 °C 36 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
12 Aug after 27.2 °C 42 % 25 km/h 0.1 mm High 28
13 Aug after 29.0 °C 35 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
14 Aug after 28.9 °C 35 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
15 Aug after 30.1 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
16 Aug after 31.1 °C 29 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
17 Aug after 29.9 °C 39 % 29 km/h 0.2 mm High 32
18 Aug after 30.4 °C 29 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
19 Aug after 31.4 °C 29 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
20 Aug after 29.5 °C 38 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 35

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Jul 2020
After · 17 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 · 343Every 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 2020 and 10 August 2020: 10 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 11,391 hectares (113.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mecula (11,455 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.5 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 40 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.