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Murrupula fire, 14 September 2024 Murrupula

Out · last detection 19 Sept 2024, 11:43 UTC

The fire started on 14 September 2024 in Murrupula, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,095 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 201th largest in Nampula since 2016 (of 393 with a page). Number 87 in Mozambique in 2024, of 150.

Burnt area
4,095ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
14 Sept 2024 – 18 Sept 2024
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
14 Sept
2024
Heat detections
179
in a single hotspot: 88 MW
Danger at start
31
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

19 Sept 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Sept18 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

141516171819

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
40km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 22 Sept.

This area had burned before

95% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 411 ha in 2016, 618 ha in 2017, 2,186 ha in 2018, 894 ha in 2019, 1,021 ha in 2020, 2,399 ha in 2021, 2,297 ha in 2022, 1,003 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,907 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Murrupula where it started
    4,116 ha reached on 14 Sept
    1.3 %

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)
14 Sept 33.8 °C 28 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
15 Sept 33.2 °C 30 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
16 Sept 31.7 °C 27 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
17 Sept 31.8 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
18 Sept 32.4 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
19 Sept after 32.5 °C 26 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
20 Sept after 33.2 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
21 Sept after 33.1 °C 29 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
22 Sept after 28.7 °C 52 % 37 km/h 1.1 mm Moderate 19

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Sept 2024
After · 25 Sept 2024

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 18 September 2024 the air beside the fire reached 64 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 33: 2.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak64 µg/m³
Days over the guideline7 days
PM1092 µg/m³
Optical depth0.83
12131415161718192021
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 179Every 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 Murrupula fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 14 September 2024 and 18 September 2024: 5 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 4,095 hectares (41.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Murrupula (4,116 ha, 1.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.8 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 40 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.