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Mecula fire, 12 September 2020 Mecula

Out · last detection 28 Sept 2020, 10:29 UTC

The fire started on 12 September 2020 in Mecula, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,756 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 60th largest in Niassa since 2016 (of 577 with a page). Number 26 in Mozambique in 2020, of 193.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Mecula · 2018Mecula · 2019Mecula · 2026Mavago · 2022

Burnt area
9,756ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
17days
12 Sept 2020 – 28 Sept 2020
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
12 Sept
2020
Heat detections
359
in a single hotspot: 41 MW
Danger at start
35
High · FWI index
Average daily power
103MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Sept28 Sept
28 Sept 2020

How it evolved, day by day

12 Sept 2020 · 29 MW · 7 13 Sept 2020 · 84 MW · 11 14 Sept 2020 · 68 MW · 13 15 Sept 2020 · 141 MW · 23 16 Sept 2020 · 92 MW · 24 17 Sept 2020 · 137 MW · 23 18 Sept 2020 · 102 MW · 31 19 Sept 2020 · 142 MW · 28 20 Sept 2020 · 90 MW · 22 21 Sept 2020 · 160 MW · 35 22 Sept 2020 · 208 MW · 27 23 Sept 2020 · 11 MW · 7 24 Sept 2020 · 38 MW · 16 25 Sept 2020 · 25 MW · 11 26 Sept 2020 · 237 MW · 44 27 Sept 2020 · 55 MW · 8 28 Sept 2020 · 131 MW · 7
12 Sept 15 Sept 18 Sept 21 Sept 24 Sept 26 Sept 27 Sept

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
41km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 7 Oct.

This area had burned before

47% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,249 ha in 2016, 1,283 ha in 2017, 2,333 ha in 2018, 7 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,542 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 6.2% of the area of London (98 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Mecula where it started
    9,830 ha reached on 9 Sept
    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 Sept 29.1 °C 23 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
10 Sept 30.3 °C 26 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
11 Sept 30.5 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
12 Sept 31.0 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
13 Sept 32.6 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
14 Sept 32.6 °C 31 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
15 Sept 33.7 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
16 Sept 32.9 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
17 Sept 33.2 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
18 Sept 31.8 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
19 Sept 32.4 °C 23 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
20 Sept 31.1 °C 34 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
21 Sept 31.0 °C 32 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
22 Sept 32.2 °C 27 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
23 Sept 29.9 °C 33 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
24 Sept 31.7 °C 27 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
25 Sept 30.8 °C 33 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
26 Sept 32.8 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
27 Sept 32.1 °C 32 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
28 Sept 29.6 °C 41 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
29 Sept after 33.0 °C 30 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
30 Sept after 33.2 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
1 Oct after 34.6 °C 26 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
2 Oct after 34.9 °C 25 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
3 Oct after 34.4 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
4 Oct after 35.6 °C 27 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
5 Oct after 36.1 °C 25 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
6 Oct after 33.2 °C 39 % 28 km/h 0.2 mm High 34
7 Oct after 29.5 °C 53 % 32 km/h 1.0 mm Moderate 18

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Sept 2020
After · 5 Oct 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 · 359Every 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 12 September 2020 and 28 September 2020: 17 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 9,756 hectares (97.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mecula (9,830 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.9 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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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How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 359 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.