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Mecula fire, 7 November 2021 Mecula

Out · last detection 13 Nov 2021, 10:24 UTC

The fire started on 7 November 2021 in Mecula, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,835 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 86th largest in Niassa since 2016 (of 567 with a page). Number 28 in Mozambique in 2021, of 233.

Burnt area
7,835ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
7 Nov 2021 – 12 Nov 2021
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
7 Nov
2021
Heat detections
323
in a single hotspot: 113 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
3.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

13 Nov 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Nov12 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

78910111213

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

The weather it burned in

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

It had gone 16 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

73% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,888 ha in 2016, 913 ha in 2017, 1,331 ha in 2018, 2,997 ha in 2019, 1,280 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,703 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mecula where it started
    7,888 ha reached on 6 Nov
    0.4 %

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)
7 Nov 36.4 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
8 Nov 35.7 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
9 Nov 35.3 °C 26 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
10 Nov 34.4 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
11 Nov 36.0 °C 26 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
12 Nov 35.0 °C 28 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
13 Nov after 34.6 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 40
14 Nov after 34.0 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
15 Nov after 33.7 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
16 Nov after 34.4 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
17 Nov after 33.6 °C 26 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
18 Nov after 34.6 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
19 Nov after 35.1 °C 30 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
20 Nov after 35.3 °C 28 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
21 Nov after 33.7 °C 28 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
22 Nov after 33.3 °C 30 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 31 Oct 2021
After · 19 Nov 2021

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 · 323Every 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 7 November 2021 and 12 November 2021: 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 7,835 hectares (78.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mecula (7,888 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.4 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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.