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Montepuez fire, July 2018 Montepuez

Out · last detection 7 Aug 2018, 11:50 UTC

The fire started on 29 July 2018 in Montepuez, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,981 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 21th largest in Cabo Delgado since 2016 (of 120 with a page). Number 54 in Mozambique in 2018, of 220.

Burnt area
5,981ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
29 Jul 2018 – 6 Aug 2018
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
29 Jul
2018
Heat detections
142
in a single hotspot: 37 MW
Danger at start
29
High · FWI index
Energy released
723MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

7 Aug 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Jul6 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

2930311234567

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

The weather it burned in

30°high
36km/h · peak gust
33%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

47% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,508 ha in 2016, 1,341 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Montepuez where it started
    6,020 ha reached on 29 Jul
    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)
29 Jul 27.3 °C 38 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
30 Jul 28.3 °C 43 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
31 Jul 28.7 °C 42 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
1 Aug 28.7 °C 33 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
2 Aug 28.8 °C 36 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
3 Aug 28.8 °C 36 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
4 Aug 27.2 °C 34 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
5 Aug 29.6 °C 35 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
6 Aug 29.3 °C 37 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
7 Aug after 30.4 °C 37 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
8 Aug after 30.0 °C 40 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
9 Aug after 30.0 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
10 Aug after 28.6 °C 41 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
11 Aug after 29.5 °C 32 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
12 Aug after 29.4 °C 36 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
13 Aug after 29.3 °C 36 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
14 Aug after 29.0 °C 36 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
15 Aug after 29.6 °C 30 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
16 Aug after 28.9 °C 32 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 32

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Jul 2018
After · 13 Aug 2018

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 · 142Every 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 Montepuez fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 29 July 2018 and 6 August 2018: 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 5,981 hectares (59.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Montepuez (6,020 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.6 °C, humidity dropped to 33 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 32, 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.