Skip to content
worldfires
en
MZ · Mozambique · →

Rapale fire, August 2017 Rapale, Murrupula, Ribaué

Out · last detection 27 Sept 2017, 22:46 UTC

The fire started on 28 August 2017 in Rapale, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 31 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 31,412 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 8th largest in Nampula since 2016 (of 392 with a page). Number 5 in Mozambique in 2017, of 196.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Rapale · 2016Murrupula · 2016Rapale · 2021Rapale · 2025

Burnt area
31,412ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
31days
28 Aug 2017 – 27 Sept 2017
Municipalities hit
3
districts
Started on
28 Aug
2017
Heat detections
1,617
in a single hotspot: 227 MW
Danger at start
31
High · FWI index
Average daily power
615MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Aug27 Sept
27 Sept 2017

How it evolved, day by day

28 Aug 2017 · 118 MW · 16 29 Aug 2017 · 11 MW · 4 30 Aug 2017 · 29 MW · 6 31 Aug 2017 · 56 MW · 8 1 Sept 2017 · 158 MW · 16 2 Sept 2017 · 409 MW · 38 3 Sept 2017 · 72 MW · 7 4 Sept 2017 · 251 MW · 24 5 Sept 2017 · 272 MW · 28 6 Sept 2017 · 222 MW · 22 7 Sept 2017 · 427 MW · 43 8 Sept 2017 · 2,130 MW · 191 9 Sept 2017 · 1,704 MW · 132 10 Sept 2017 · 895 MW · 78 11 Sept 2017 · 386 MW · 67 12 Sept 2017 · 1,162 MW · 69 13 Sept 2017 · 2,348 MW · 201 14 Sept 2017 · 1,459 MW · 109 15 Sept 2017 · 2,240 MW · 162 16 Sept 2017 · 935 MW · 83 17 Sept 2017 · 1,777 MW · 98 18 Sept 2017 · 101 MW · 10 19 Sept 2017 · 437 MW · 40 20 Sept 2017 · 232 MW · 25 21 Sept 2017 · 22 MW · 2 22 Sept 2017 · 37 MW · 9 23 Sept 2017 · 165 MW · 14 24 Sept 2017 · 327 MW · 41 25 Sept 2017 · 82 MW · 17 26 Sept 2017 · 590 MW · 52 27 Sept 2017 · 25 MW · 5
28 Aug 2 Sept 7 Sept 12 Sept 13 Sept 17 Sept 22 Sept 27 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

33°high
49km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 19 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.8 mm on 28 Sept.

This area had burned before

59% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 19,041 ha in 2016.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 20% of the area of London (314 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. Rapale where it started
    18,420 ha reached on 28 Aug
    5.0 %
  2. Murrupula
    13,084 ha reached on 30 Aug
    4.2 %
  3. Ribaué
    73 ha reached on 28 Aug
    0.0 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area 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)
28 Aug 26.6 °C 37 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
29 Aug 25.8 °C 38 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
30 Aug 25.7 °C 41 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
31 Aug 26.8 °C 39 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
1 Sept 29.9 °C 32 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
2 Sept 29.3 °C 33 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
3 Sept 25.8 °C 47 % 44 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 20
4 Sept 25.4 °C 42 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
5 Sept 26.8 °C 41 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
6 Sept 28.7 °C 40 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 21
7 Sept 29.8 °C 33 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
8 Sept 31.0 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
9 Sept 30.3 °C 29 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
10 Sept 29.4 °C 30 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
11 Sept 30.4 °C 32 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
12 Sept 30.1 °C 36 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
13 Sept 31.2 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
14 Sept 31.9 °C 23 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
15 Sept 31.2 °C 18 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
16 Sept 30.9 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
17 Sept 32.8 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
18 Sept 31.7 °C 35 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
19 Sept 31.8 °C 36 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
20 Sept 32.1 °C 32 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
21 Sept 29.2 °C 45 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
22 Sept 30.6 °C 37 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
23 Sept 32.4 °C 25 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
24 Sept 28.5 °C 39 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
25 Sept 29.8 °C 38 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
26 Sept 32.9 °C 31 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
27 Sept 33.3 °C 30 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
28 Sept after 30.9 °C 41 % 41 km/h 1.8 mm Moderate 18

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 Aug 2017
After · 4 Oct 2017

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 · 1,617Every 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 Rapale fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 28 August 2017 to 27 September 2017 (31 days). The perimeter dates it from 4 September 2017 to 20 September 2017.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 31,412 hectares (314.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Rapale (18,420 ha, 5.0 %); Murrupula (13,084 ha, 4.2 %); Ribaué (73 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.3 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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

History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 20 September 2017 → 27 September 2017.
  2. Start date: 4 September 2017 → 28 August 2017.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 4 September 2017 to 20 September 2017. 1,617 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.