Burned area
satellite only3,374ha
Perimeter published by GWIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 27 Sept 2018 – 6 Oct 2018
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
MZ · Mozambique · –
Mogovolas fire, September 2018 Murrupula, Mogovolas
Out · last detection 6 Oct 2018, 11:25 UTC
The fire started on 27 September 2018 in Mogovolas, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,374 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 209th largest in Nampula since 2016 (of 269 with a page). Number 163 in Mozambique in 2018, of 220.
Use this data
Compare with…
Suggestions: Gilé · 2022Mogovolas · 2024Gilé · 2026Rapale · 2016
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-11-15matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only10days
27 Sept 2018 to 6 Oct 2018: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 6 Oct 2018, 11:25 UTC
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only27 Sept 2018
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 27 Sept 2018
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only105
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 32 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 27 Sept 2018 – 6 Oct 2018
+− cross-check
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
The worst day
satellite only540MW
Total radiative power on 28 September 2018; hotspots that day: 53.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 28 Sept 2018
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model46.4FWI · very high
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 16.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 27 Sept 2018, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model33.7°C · 30% RH
High of 33.7 °C and minimum humidity of 30% on 27 September 2018; gusts of 52 km/h on 30 September 2018.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 27 Sept 2018 – 6 Oct 2018
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
logName: Murrupula → Mogovolas.
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
logLast day with fire: 29 September 2018 → 6 October 2018.
Area logged each night
Move the slider to see which area the page published each day.
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/mogovolas-2018-09?v=2026-11-15A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire mogovolas-2018-09.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-09-27 | 6 | 57 | 33.7 | 20.6 | 30 | 17.4 | 36 | 0 | 46.4 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2018-09-28 | 53 | 540 | 33.5 | 20.1 | 27 | 16.6 | 38.9 | 0 | 49.2 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2018-09-29 | 39 | 317 | 33.7 | 21.4 | 29 | 14.5 | 30.2 | 0 | 43.1 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2018-09-30 | 3 | 30 | 30 | 21 | 45 | 24.5 | 52.2 | 2.9 | 48 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2018-10-01 | 0 | 0 | 29.4 | 21.1 | 57 | 21.1 | 46.1 | 5.4 | 12.9 | moderado | 1 |
| 2018-10-02 | 0 | 0 | 29 | 20.5 | 51 | 13.3 | 29.5 | 2.5 | 5.5 | bajo | 1 |
| 2018-10-03 | 2 | 15 | 32.3 | 19.2 | 33 | 17.2 | 33.8 | 0 | 24.2 | alto | 1 |
| 2018-10-04 | 0 | 0 | 32.2 | 18.5 | 32 | 15.9 | 32 | 0 | 29.3 | alto | 1 |
| 2018-10-05 | 1 | 5 | 29 | 20.3 | 45 | 15.6 | 34.2 | 0.7 | 25.2 | alto | 1 |
| 2018-10-06 | 1 | 10 | 28.9 | 19.8 | 39 | 18 | 37.4 | 0.2 | 27.3 | alto | 1 |
| 2018-10-07 | 0 | 0 | 28.6 | 17.7 | 43 | 16.7 | 37.8 | 0 | 29.9 | alto | 0 |
| 2018-10-08 | 0 | 0 | 28.3 | 18.8 | 47 | 19.4 | 43.6 | 0.3 | 29.7 | alto | 0 |
| 2018-10-09 | 0 | 0 | 29.7 | 19.8 | 46 | 18.4 | 39.6 | 0 | 25.6 | alto | 0 |
| 2018-10-10 | 0 | 0 | 30.3 | 20.8 | 48 | 11.8 | 22.3 | 0 | 20.2 | moderado | 0 |
| 2018-10-11 | 0 | 0 | 31.7 | 20.4 | 41 | 17.6 | 47.9 | 0.8 | 36.4 | alto | 0 |
| 2018-10-12 | 0 | 0 | 32.1 | 21.2 | 38 | 15.5 | 30.6 | 0 | 25.2 | alto | 0 |
| 2018-10-13 | 0 | 0 | 33.7 | 21.9 | 33 | 17.7 | 36 | 0 | 30.4 | alto | 0 |
| 2018-10-14 | 0 | 0 | 33.5 | 21.3 | 34 | 16.9 | 34.2 | 0 | 31.9 | alto | 0 |
| 2018-10-15 | 0 | 0 | 34 | 21.9 | 35 | 16.7 | 32.4 | 0 | 34.4 | alto | 0 |
| 2018-10-16 | 0 | 0 | 36.5 | 22.8 | 25 | 16.8 | 34.9 | 0 | 39.1 | muy_alto | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: GWIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 3,374ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 10days
- 27 Sept 2018 – 6 Oct 2018
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 27 Sept
- 2018
- Heat detections
- 105
- in a single hotspot: 32 MW
- Danger at start
- 46
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 139MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
27 Sept6 Oct
6 Oct 2018
How it evolved, day by day
28 Sept
3 Oct
6 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
52km/h · peak gust
27%lowest humidity
It had gone 16 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 20 ha in 2016.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
3,362 ha1.1 %
-
Mogovolas where it started31 ha0.0 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 27 Sept | 33.7 °C | 30 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 28 Sept | 33.5 °C | 27 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 29 Sept | 33.7 °C | 29 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 30 Sept | 30.0 °C | 45 % | 52 km/h | 2.9 mm | Very high 48 |
| 1 Oct | 29.4 °C | 57 % | 46 km/h | 5.4 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 2 Oct | 29.0 °C | 51 % | 30 km/h | 2.5 mm | Low 6 |
| 3 Oct | 32.3 °C | 33 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 4 Oct | 32.2 °C | 32 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 5 Oct | 29.0 °C | 45 % | 34 km/h | 0.7 mm | High 25 |
| 6 Oct | 28.9 °C | 39 % | 37 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 27 |
| 7 Oct after | 28.6 °C | 43 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 8 Oct after | 28.3 °C | 47 % | 44 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 30 |
| 9 Oct after | 29.7 °C | 46 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 10 Oct after | 30.3 °C | 48 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 11 Oct after | 31.7 °C | 41 % | 48 km/h | 0.8 mm | High 36 |
| 12 Oct after | 32.1 °C | 38 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 13 Oct after | 33.7 °C | 33 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 14 Oct after | 33.5 °C | 34 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 15 Oct after | 34.0 °C | 35 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 16 Oct after | 36.5 °C | 25 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 46.4, a minimum humidity of 30% and 16 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 33.
FWI at the start
46.4
Minimum humidity
30 %
Days without rain
16
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Mogovolas fire, September 2018
3,374 ha
10 days
FWI 46.4
Min. humidity 30 %
Gilé fire, September 2022
7,914 ha
22 days
FWI 46.1
Min. humidity 31 %
53 km away, in 2022
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Mogovolas fire, September 2024
3,333 ha
5 days
FWI 45.3
Min. humidity 30 %
37 km away, in 2024
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 3.0 mm on 3 Oct.
Gilé fire, September 2022
5,053 ha
22 days
FWI 45.7
Min. humidity 31 %
49 km away, in 2022
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Mecubúri fire, September 2024
3,303 ha
8 days
FWI 44.2
Min. humidity 29 %
87 km away, in 2024
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.4 mm on 23 Sept.
Pebane fire, September 2018
3,507 ha
4 days
FWI 47.1
Min. humidity 30 %
156 km away, in 2018
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 2.6 mm on 10 Sept.
What happened to them
- 13 days
- median duration
- 4,197 ha
- median area
- 6 %
- went past 10,000 ha
- 2.2 mm
- rain at the end (median; 21 of 33 had it)
It burned an area similar to its twins (3,374 ha against a median of 4,197 ha) and lasted 10 days, against 13 days.
In 12 of 33, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.2 mm.
This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it
How it ended
—first rain
—no rain in ten days
52km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 6 Oct, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 21 of 33, with a median of 2.2 mm.
Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)
How a twin is chosen
- Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
- Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
- Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
- Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
- They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 20 Sept 2018
After · 13 Oct 2018
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
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 · 105Every 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
- 51,626 haGilé1 September 2026 · 29 days · 17 km away
- 29,654 haRapaleSeptember 2016 · 29 days · 22 km away
- 24,027 haMogovolas11 September 2024 · 19 days · 24 km away
- 26,065 haRapale2 September 2025 · 24 days · 25 km away
- 31,330 haRapaleSeptember 2017 · 17 days · 31 km away
- 26,637 haRibaué18 August 2026 · 31 days · 39 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Mogovolas fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 27 September 2018 to 6 October 2018 (10 days). The perimeter dates it from 27 September 2018 to 29 September 2018.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,374 hectares (33.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Murrupula (3,362 ha, 1.1 %); Mogovolas (31 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 33.7 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 52 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.
- How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
- Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 33. Their median duration was 13 days and their median area 4,197 ha; 6 % went past 10,000 ha. In 12 of 33, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.2 mm.
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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Name: Murrupula → Mogovolas.
- Last day with fire: 29 September 2018 → 6 October 2018.
RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version
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.
Report an error
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 27 September 2018 to 29 September 2018. 105 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.
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.