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Mecula fire, 19 September 2022 Mecula

Out · last detection 27 Oct 2022, 22:46 UTC

The fire started on 19 September 2022 in Mecula, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 39 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 31,277 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 5th largest in Niassa since 2016 (of 577 with a page). Number 9 in Mozambique in 2022, of 206.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Mecula · 2020Mecula · 2018Mecula · 2019Mecula · 2020

Burnt area
31,277ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
39days
19 Sept 2022 – 27 Oct 2022
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
19 Sept
2022
Heat detections
1,053
in a single hotspot: 148 MW
Danger at start
38
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
214MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Sept27 Oct
27 Oct 2022

How it evolved, day by day

19 Sept 2022 · 481 MW · 43 20 Sept 2022 · 55 MW · 23 21 Sept 2022 · 240 MW · 27 22 Sept 2022 · 123 MW · 31 23 Sept 2022 · 167 MW · 16 24 Sept 2022 · 77 MW · 33 25 Sept 2022 · 43 MW · 41 26 Sept 2022 · 655 MW · 88 27 Sept 2022 · 503 MW · 83 28 Sept 2022 · 259 MW · 48 29 Sept 2022 · 281 MW · 40 30 Sept 2022 · 6 MW · 4 1 Oct 2022 · 28 MW · 6 3 Oct 2022 · 334 MW · 33 4 Oct 2022 · 1,707 MW · 66 5 Oct 2022 · 511 MW · 56 6 Oct 2022 · 572 MW · 56 7 Oct 2022 · 207 MW · 19 8 Oct 2022 · 43 MW · 9 9 Oct 2022 · 89 MW · 25 10 Oct 2022 · 89 MW · 25 11 Oct 2022 · 98 MW · 24 12 Oct 2022 · 75 MW · 12 13 Oct 2022 · 177 MW · 11 14 Oct 2022 · 180 MW · 19 15 Oct 2022 · 32 MW · 11 16 Oct 2022 · 17 MW · 7 17 Oct 2022 · 97 MW · 17 18 Oct 2022 · 72 MW · 14 19 Oct 2022 · 188 MW · 33 20 Oct 2022 · 33 MW · 7 21 Oct 2022 · 169 MW · 30 22 Oct 2022 · 177 MW · 20 23 Oct 2022 · 151 MW · 25 24 Oct 2022 · 43 MW · 10 25 Oct 2022 · 16 MW · 5 26 Oct 2022 · 97 MW · 16 27 Oct 2022 · 36 MW · 6
19 Sept 25 Sept 1 Oct 4 Oct 8 Oct 14 Oct 20 Oct 26 Oct

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
41km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

82% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,006 ha in 2016, 6,946 ha in 2017, 8,581 ha in 2018, 8,066 ha in 2019, 11,717 ha in 2020, 4,363 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 25,641 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 20% of the area of London (313 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
    31,475 ha reached on 18 Sept
    1.7 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area 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)
19 Sept 30.3 °C 32 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
20 Sept 30.7 °C 35 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
21 Sept 28.5 °C 37 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
22 Sept 31.7 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
23 Sept 30.2 °C 32 % 40 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 39
24 Sept 31.6 °C 35 % 34 km/h 0.1 mm High 35
25 Sept 31.1 °C 36 % 34 km/h 0.3 mm High 35
26 Sept 32.1 °C 34 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm High 36
27 Sept 31.0 °C 35 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
28 Sept 31.1 °C 28 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
29 Sept 31.0 °C 31 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
30 Sept 31.9 °C 25 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
1 Oct 31.4 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
2 Oct 32.3 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
3 Oct 32.2 °C 29 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
4 Oct 32.6 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
5 Oct 32.0 °C 29 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
6 Oct 32.9 °C 24 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
7 Oct 32.6 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
8 Oct 32.7 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
9 Oct 32.2 °C 23 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
10 Oct 32.0 °C 24 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
11 Oct 31.7 °C 26 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
12 Oct 31.7 °C 26 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
13 Oct 32.6 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
14 Oct 32.8 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
15 Oct 32.6 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
16 Oct 31.9 °C 29 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
17 Oct 32.3 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
18 Oct 32.2 °C 30 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
19 Oct 32.6 °C 28 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
20 Oct 32.7 °C 28 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
21 Oct 32.9 °C 28 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
22 Oct 32.7 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
23 Oct 32.4 °C 30 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
24 Oct 33.7 °C 31 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
25 Oct 33.4 °C 33 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
26 Oct 32.9 °C 28 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
27 Oct 33.3 °C 26 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
28 Oct after 34.6 °C 26 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
29 Oct after 34.6 °C 28 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
30 Oct after 33.6 °C 31 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
31 Oct after 34.6 °C 26 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
1 Nov after 34.2 °C 31 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
2 Nov after 32.9 °C 34 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
3 Nov after 34.1 °C 31 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
4 Nov after 33.3 °C 34 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 40
5 Nov after 33.7 °C 30 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
6 Nov after 33.5 °C 31 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 12 Sept 2022
After · 3 Nov 2022

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 · 1,053Every 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 19 September 2022 and 27 October 2022: 39 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 31,277 hectares (312.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mecula (31,475 ha, 1.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.7 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 41 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

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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; 4 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 1,053 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.