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Pebane fire, September 2019 Pebane

Out · last detection 17 Sept 2019, 11:37 UTC

The fire started on 8 September 2019 in Pebane, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,174 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 755th largest in Zambézia since 2016 (of 842 with a page). Number 176 in Mozambique in 2019, of 212.

Burnt area
3,174ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
8 Sept 2019 – 16 Sept 2019
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
8 Sept
2019
Heat detections
77
in a single hotspot: 51 MW
Danger at start
28
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

17 Sept 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Sept16 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

1011121314151617

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
43km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 23 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.8 mm on 25 Sept.

This area had burned before

2% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 66 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Pebane where it started
    3,186 ha reached on 10 Sept
    0.3 %

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)
8 Sept 26.4 °C 40 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
9 Sept 27.2 °C 35 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
10 Sept 31.9 °C 26 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
11 Sept 32.8 °C 37 % 32 km/h 0.2 mm High 35
12 Sept 33.9 °C 34 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
13 Sept 35.0 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
14 Sept 35.1 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
15 Sept 32.0 °C 37 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
16 Sept 32.8 °C 34 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
17 Sept after 31.4 °C 41 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
18 Sept after 31.0 °C 40 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
19 Sept after 32.1 °C 36 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
20 Sept after 31.8 °C 37 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
21 Sept after 32.0 °C 37 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
22 Sept after 33.8 °C 32 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
23 Sept after 34.5 °C 31 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
24 Sept after 33.0 °C 34 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
25 Sept after 29.7 °C 50 % 42 km/h 1.8 mm Moderate 17

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Sept 2019
After · 23 Sept 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 · 77Every 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 Pebane fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 8 September 2019 and 16 September 2019: 9 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 3,174 hectares (31.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Pebane (3,186 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.1 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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.