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Montepuez fire, October 2018 Montepuez

Out · last detection 2 Nov 2018, 11:19 UTC

The fire started on 21 October 2018 in Montepuez, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,256 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 11th largest in Cabo Delgado since 2016 (of 120 with a page). Number 42 in Mozambique in 2018, of 220.

Burnt area
7,256ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
21 Oct 2018 – 1 Nov 2018
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
21 Oct
2018
Heat detections
233
in a single hotspot: 178 MW
Danger at start
10
Low · FWI index
Energy released
1.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

2 Nov 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Oct1 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

212223242526272829303112

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
59km/h · peak gust
30%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 9 Nov.

This area had burned before

11% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 256 ha in 2016, 532 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Montepuez where it started
    7,302 ha reached on 21 Oct
    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)
21 Oct 27.2 °C 54 % 55 km/h 3.1 mm Low 10
22 Oct 28.3 °C 36 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
23 Oct 28.6 °C 34 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
24 Oct 30.8 °C 32 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
25 Oct 31.0 °C 32 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
26 Oct 32.2 °C 30 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
27 Oct 31.2 °C 35 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
28 Oct 31.4 °C 32 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
29 Oct 31.1 °C 30 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
30 Oct 31.2 °C 34 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
31 Oct 32.3 °C 34 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
1 Nov 31.7 °C 37 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
2 Nov after 32.2 °C 38 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
3 Nov after 33.0 °C 32 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
4 Nov after 31.5 °C 35 % 37 km/h 0.3 mm High 35
5 Nov after 32.6 °C 36 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
6 Nov after 34.0 °C 31 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
7 Nov after 32.1 °C 38 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
8 Nov after 33.7 °C 36 % 36 km/h 0.1 mm High 34
9 Nov after 28.4 °C 54 % 46 km/h 1.1 mm Moderate 20

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 14 Oct 2018
After · 8 Nov 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 · 233Every 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 21 October 2018 and 1 November 2018: 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 7,256 hectares (72.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Montepuez (7,302 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.3 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 59 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, 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.