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Mecula fire, 27 July 2023 Mecula

Out · last detection 1 Aug 2023, 11:27 UTC

The fire started on 27 July 2023 in Mecula, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,063 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 305th largest in Niassa since 2016 (of 567 with a page). Number 74 in Mozambique in 2023, of 128.

The power measured by the satellite is low (22.1 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
4,063ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
27 Jul 2023 – 1 Aug 2023
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
27 Jul
2023
Heat detections
88
in a single hotspot: 22 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Energy released
417MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

1 Aug 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Jul1 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

27282930311

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
35km/h · peak gust
27%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

92% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,019 ha in 2016, 1,234 ha in 2018, 1,330 ha in 2019, 1,130 ha in 2020, 868 ha in 2021, 15 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,723 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mecula where it started
    4,081 ha reached on 27 Jul
    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)
27 Jul 30.8 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
28 Jul 30.8 °C 34 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
29 Jul 29.5 °C 31 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
30 Jul 29.7 °C 34 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
31 Jul 30.8 °C 28 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
1 Aug 30.3 °C 39 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
2 Aug after 30.0 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
3 Aug after 29.1 °C 32 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
4 Aug after 30.0 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
5 Aug after 30.2 °C 43 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
6 Aug after 30.0 °C 36 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
7 Aug after 30.3 °C 40 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
8 Aug after 31.3 °C 27 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
9 Aug after 29.7 °C 30 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
10 Aug after 29.3 °C 32 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
11 Aug after 29.5 °C 30 % 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 · 20 Jul 2023
After · 8 Aug 2023

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 · 88Every 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 27 July 2023 and 1 August 2023: 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 4,063 hectares (40.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mecula (4,081 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.8 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, 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.