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Mocuba fire, 4 September 2016 Mocuba

Out · last detection 13 Sept 2016, 11:43 UTC

The fire started on 4 September 2016 in Mocuba, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,024 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 827th largest in Zambézia since 2016 (of 845 with a page). Number 192 in Mozambique in 2016, of 194.

Burnt area
3,024ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
4 Sept 2016 – 12 Sept 2016
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
4 Sept
2016
Heat detections
132
in a single hotspot: 178 MW
Danger at start
33
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

13 Sept 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Sept12 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

45678910111213

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
38km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone 10 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.7 mm on 20 Sept.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Mocuba where it started
    3,038 ha reached on 4 Sept
    0.3 %

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)
4 Sept 31.0 °C 30 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
5 Sept 31.5 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
6 Sept 33.0 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
7 Sept 32.2 °C 30 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
8 Sept 34.5 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
9 Sept 35.1 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
10 Sept 35.3 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
11 Sept 31.7 °C 32 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
12 Sept 31.2 °C 34 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
13 Sept after 32.5 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
14 Sept after 30.6 °C 41 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
15 Sept after 32.2 °C 30 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
16 Sept after 35.2 °C 23 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
17 Sept after 36.3 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
18 Sept after 34.7 °C 19 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
19 Sept after 31.9 °C 36 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
20 Sept after 29.7 °C 36 % 31 km/h 1.7 mm Moderate 17

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Aug 2016
After · 19 Sept 2016

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 · 132Every 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 Mocuba fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 September 2016 and 12 September 2016: 9 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 3,024 hectares (30.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mocuba (3,038 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.3 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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.