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Mossuril fire, 20 October 2019 Mossuril

Out · last detection 31 Oct 2019, 11:12 UTC

The fire started on 20 October 2019 in Mossuril, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,505 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 278th largest in Nampula since 2016 (of 392 with a page). Number 140 in Mozambique in 2019, of 212.

Burnt area
3,505ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
11days
20 Oct 2019 – 30 Oct 2019
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
20 Oct
2019
Heat detections
195
in a single hotspot: 238 MW
Danger at start
19
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
4.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

31 Oct 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Oct30 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

202122232425262728293031

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
50km/h · peak gust
28%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.9 mm on 3 Nov.

This area had burned before

45% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 469 ha in 2016, 638 ha in 2017, 505 ha in 2018.

What happened to each town

  1. Mossuril where it started
    3,530 ha reached on 20 Oct
    1.0 %

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)
20 Oct 31.6 °C 49 % 42 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 19
21 Oct 32.8 °C 38 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
22 Oct 33.6 °C 40 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
23 Oct 31.7 °C 53 % 46 km/h 0.2 mm High 25
24 Oct 32.6 °C 52 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
25 Oct 33.0 °C 52 % 44 km/h 0.1 mm High 27
26 Oct 33.0 °C 48 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
27 Oct 34.5 °C 33 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
28 Oct 34.9 °C 30 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
29 Oct 34.4 °C 28 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
30 Oct 33.7 °C 34 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
31 Oct after 32.2 °C 50 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
1 Nov after 32.5 °C 49 % 50 km/h 0.1 mm High 33
2 Nov after 31.5 °C 50 % 46 km/h 0.2 mm High 30
3 Nov after 31.0 °C 63 % 36 km/h 2.9 mm Low 7

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Oct 2019
After · 6 Nov 2019

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 · 195Every 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 Mossuril fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 20 October 2019 and 30 October 2019: 11 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 3,505 hectares (35.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mossuril (3,530 ha, 1.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.9 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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.