How long did the Mocuba fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 9 September 2019 and 20 September 2019: 12 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 3,979 hectares (39.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Mocuba (3,996 ha, 0.4 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 36.3 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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.

MZ · Mozambique · 2019-09-09 → 2019-09-20

Mocuba fire, 9 September 2019 Mocuba

Out · last detection 21 Sept 2019, 10:21 UTC

The fire started on 9 September 2019 in Mocuba, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,979 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 528th largest in Zambézia since 2016 (of 842 with a page). Number 113 in Mozambique in 2019, of 212.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Mocuba · 2018 Mocuba · 2020 Lugela · 2026 Derre · 2016

Burnt area: 3,979ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 12days; 9 Sept 2019 – 20 Sept 2019
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 9 Sept; 2019
Heat detections: 176; in a single hotspot: 95 MW
Danger at start: 16; Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power: 125MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Sept20 Sept

Play back 21 Sept 2019

How it evolved, day by day

9 Sept 11 Sept 13 Sept 15 Sept 17 Sept 19 Sept 21 Sept

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

41km/h · peak gust

22%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 6.8 mm on 25 Sept.

This area had burned before

84% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,499 ha in 2016, 1,311 ha in 2017, 2,750 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,356 ha that had burned before.

2,750 ha Mocuba fire, September 2018 116,289 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 2.5% of the area of London (40 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

Mocuba where it started

3,996 ha reached on 5 Sept

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)
9 Sept	25.6 °C	29 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 16
10 Sept	30.7 °C	22 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
11 Sept	32.8 °C	24 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
12 Sept	35.8 °C	22 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
13 Sept	35.1 °C	29 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
14 Sept	36.3 °C	25 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
15 Sept	33.3 °C	26 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
16 Sept	31.6 °C	30 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
17 Sept	30.7 °C	35 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
18 Sept	29.9 °C	36 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
19 Sept	30.9 °C	31 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
20 Sept	30.8 °C	33 %	35 km/h	0.1 mm	High 32
21 Sept after	32.0 °C	31 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
22 Sept after	34.6 °C	24 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
23 Sept after	36.2 °C	24 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
24 Sept after	34.6 °C	21 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
25 Sept after	28.6 °C	43 %	44 km/h	6.8 mm	Low 7

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 2 Sept 2019

After · 27 Sept 2019

Before After

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 · 176Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Mozambique ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Mocuba fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 9 September 2019 and 20 September 2019: 12 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 3,979 hectares (39.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Mocuba (3,996 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 36.3 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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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What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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How we know this

Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 176 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.

Where it burned