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Mecula fire, 7 October 2022 Mecula

Out · last detection 16 Oct 2022, 22:52 UTC

The fire started on 7 October 2022 in Mecula, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,123 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 299th largest in Niassa since 2016 (of 567 with a page). Number 116 in Mozambique in 2022, of 206.

The power measured by the satellite is low (19.1 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
4,123ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
7 Oct 2022 – 16 Oct 2022
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
7 Oct
2022
Heat detections
123
in a single hotspot: 19 MW
Danger at start
45
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
544MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

16 Oct 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Oct16 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

78910111213141516

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
38km/h · peak gust
21%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: 1,823 ha in 2018, 2,300 ha in 2019, 73 ha in 2020, 585 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,946 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mecula where it started
    4,144 ha reached on 7 Oct
    0.2 %

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 Oct 34.2 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
8 Oct 33.7 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
9 Oct 33.6 °C 22 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
10 Oct 32.6 °C 25 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
11 Oct 32.5 °C 24 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
12 Oct 33.2 °C 23 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 Oct 33.5 °C 22 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
14 Oct 34.2 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
15 Oct 32.7 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
16 Oct 33.0 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
17 Oct after 33.4 °C 27 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
18 Oct after 34.1 °C 22 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
19 Oct after 33.7 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
20 Oct after 33.3 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
21 Oct after 33.9 °C 27 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
22 Oct after 33.9 °C 25 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
23 Oct after 33.7 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
24 Oct after 34.7 °C 30 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
25 Oct after 34.4 °C 29 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
26 Oct after 33.8 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 30 Sept 2022
After · 23 Oct 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 · 123Every 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 October 2022 and 16 October 2022: 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 4,123 hectares (41.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mecula (4,144 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.2 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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.