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CM · Cameroon · →

Mora fire, December 2019 Mora, Waza

Out · last detection 26 Dec 2019, 12:10 UTC

The fire started on 25 December 2019 in Mora, Cameroon, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,222 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 210th largest in Far North since 2016 (of 339 with a page). Number 134 in Cameroon in 2019, of 196.

Burnt area
1,222ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
2days
25 Dec 2019 – 26 Dec 2019
Municipalities hit
2
communes
Started on
25 Dec
2019
Heat detections
28
in a single hotspot: 36 MW
Energy released
347MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

26 Dec 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 25 Dec26 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

2526

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

This area had burned before

4% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 48 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Mora where it started
    746 ha reached on 25 Dec
    0.4 %
  2. Waza
    484 ha reached on 25 Dec
    0.2 %

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.

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 18 Dec 2019
After · 2 Jan 2020

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 · 28Every 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 Cameroon ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Mora fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 25 December 2019 and 26 December 2019: 2 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 1,222 hectares (12.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mora (746 ha, 0.4 %); Waza (484 ha, 0.2 %).
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Cameroon (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 ADM3 (Open Data Commons Open Database License 1.0). 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.