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Pebane fire, 15 September 2023 Pebane

Out · last detection 21 Sept 2023, 10:28 UTC

The fire started on 15 September 2023 in Pebane, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,368 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 451th largest in Zambézia since 2016 (of 842 with a page). Number 65 in Mozambique in 2023, of 128.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Pebane · 2021Pebane · 2021Pebane · 2022Pebane · 2026

Burnt area
4,368ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
15 Sept 2023 – 21 Sept 2023
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
15 Sept
2023
Heat detections
151
in a single hotspot: 31 MW
Danger at start
21
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
165MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Sept21 Sept
21 Sept 2023

How it evolved, day by day

15 Sept 2023 · 72 MW · 5 16 Sept 2023 · 255 MW · 21 17 Sept 2023 · 166 MW · 25 18 Sept 2023 · 430 MW · 46 19 Sept 2023 · 92 MW · 13 20 Sept 2023 · 49 MW · 8 21 Sept 2023 · 94 MW · 19
15 Sept 16 Sept 17 Sept 18 Sept 19 Sept 20 Sept 21 Sept

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
47km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

70% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 655 ha in 2018, 838 ha in 2019, 1,791 ha in 2021, 486 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,048 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 2.8% of the area of London (44 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Pebane where it started
    4,391 ha reached on 15 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)
15 Sept 33.0 °C 35 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
16 Sept 37.0 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
17 Sept 37.8 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
18 Sept 34.6 °C 28 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
19 Sept 30.7 °C 45 % 32 km/h 0.4 mm High 26
20 Sept 34.1 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
21 Sept 35.3 °C 25 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
22 Sept after 34.5 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
23 Sept after 35.6 °C 25 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
24 Sept after 36.1 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
25 Sept after 35.1 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
26 Sept after 37.5 °C 21 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
27 Sept after 36.1 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
28 Sept after 36.9 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
29 Sept after 35.9 °C 26 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
30 Sept after 36.9 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
1 Oct after 39.3 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 8 Sept 2023
After · 28 Sept 2023

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 19 September 2023 the air beside the fire reached 56 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 26: 1.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak56 µg/m³
Days over the guideline2 days
PM1082 µg/m³
Optical depth0.81
131415161718192021222324
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 · 151Every 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 15 September 2023 and 21 September 2023: 7 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 4,368 hectares (43.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Pebane (4,391 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.8 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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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How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 151 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.