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Mopeia fire, October 2016 Mopeia

Out · last detection 11 Nov 2016, 11:37 UTC

The fire started on 28 October 2016 in Mopeia, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,760 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 300th largest in Zambézia since 2016 (of 842 with a page). Number 65 in Mozambique in 2016, of 194.

Burnt area
5,760ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
14days
28 Oct 2016 – 10 Nov 2016
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
28 Oct
2016
Heat detections
402
in a single hotspot: 222 MW
Danger at start
38
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
3.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

11 Nov 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Oct10 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

282930311234567891011

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

The weather it burned in

40°high
52km/h · peak gust
27%lowest humidity

It had gone 24 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.7 mm on 15 Nov.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Mopeia where it started
    5,794 ha reached on 21 Oct
    0.8 %

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)
28 Oct 36.7 °C 34 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
29 Oct 35.2 °C 40 % 36 km/h 0.1 mm High 36
30 Oct 37.3 °C 31 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
31 Oct 39.8 °C 27 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
1 Nov 37.8 °C 32 % 43 km/h 0.4 mm Very high 46
2 Nov 33.7 °C 44 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
3 Nov 32.6 °C 50 % 38 km/h 0.7 mm High 25
4 Nov 35.3 °C 39 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
5 Nov 36.0 °C 37 % 44 km/h 0.3 mm High 36
6 Nov 37.7 °C 29 % 52 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 45
7 Nov 37.9 °C 30 % 45 km/h 1.2 mm Very high 40
8 Nov 34.5 °C 41 % 43 km/h 0.4 mm Very high 38
9 Nov 36.2 °C 35 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
10 Nov 38.4 °C 30 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
11 Nov after 35.5 °C 38 % 46 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 42
12 Nov after 35.7 °C 40 % 38 km/h 0.4 mm High 37
13 Nov after 40.1 °C 25 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
14 Nov after 40.7 °C 21 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
15 Nov after 34.8 °C 39 % 49 km/h 1.7 mm High 29

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 Oct 2016
After · 17 Nov 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 · 402Every 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 Mopeia fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 28 October 2016 and 10 November 2016: 14 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 5,760 hectares (57.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mopeia (5,794 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.8 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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.