How long did the Pebane fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 8 September 2018 and 9 September 2018: 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 3,507 hectares (35.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Pebane (3,526 ha, 0.4 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 34.6 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, 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.

MZ · Mozambique · 2018-09-08 → 2018-09-09

Pebane fire, 8 September 2018 Pebane

Out · last detection 9 Sept 2018, 11:30 UTC

The fire started on 8 September 2018 in Pebane, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,507 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 633th largest in Zambézia since 2016 (of 842 with a page). Number 149 in Mozambique in 2018, of 220.

Burnt area: 3,507ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 2days; 8 Sept 2018 – 9 Sept 2018
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 8 Sept; 2018
Heat detections: 92; in a single hotspot: 84 MW
Danger at start: 38; High · FWI index
Energy released: 1.7GW; sum of detected power

Play back 9 Sept 2018

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Sept9 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

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

44km/h · peak gust

23%lowest humidity

It had gone 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.6 mm on 10 Sept.

This area had burned before

31% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 121 ha in 2016, 955 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

Pebane where it started

3,526 ha reached on 8 Sept

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)
8 Sept	33.3 °C	29 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
9 Sept	34.6 °C	23 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
10 Sept after	26.2 °C	60 %	46 km/h	2.6 mm	Low 8

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 1 Sept 2018

After · 16 Sept 2018

Before After

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 · 92Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Mozambique ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Pebane fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 8 September 2018 and 9 September 2018: 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 3,507 hectares (35.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Pebane (3,526 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 34.6 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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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What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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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.

Where it burned