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Sanga fire, 14 October 2017 Sanga

Out · last detection 28 Oct 2017, 23:04 UTC

The fire started on 14 October 2017 in Sanga, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 19,157 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 14th largest in Niassa since 2016 (of 577 with a page). Number 8 in Mozambique in 2017, of 196.

Burnt area
19,157ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
14days
14 Oct 2017 – 27 Oct 2017
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
14 Oct
2017
Heat detections
865
in a single hotspot: 131 MW
Danger at start
29
High · FWI index
Energy released
6.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

28 Oct 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Oct27 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

141516171819202122232425262728

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
41km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.3 mm on 28 Oct.

This area had burned before

4% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 783 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Sanga where it started
    19,246 ha reached on 13 Oct
    1.5 %

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)
13 Oct 32.1 °C 37 % 40 km/h 0.8 mm High 29
14 Oct 29.3 °C 34 % 35 km/h 0.6 mm High 28
15 Oct 31.1 °C 30 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
16 Oct 33.5 °C 20 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
17 Oct 35.0 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
18 Oct 35.0 °C 22 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
19 Oct 33.5 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
20 Oct 34.3 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
21 Oct 33.3 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
22 Oct 33.0 °C 26 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
23 Oct 32.6 °C 31 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 38
24 Oct 32.8 °C 26 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
25 Oct 32.6 °C 33 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
26 Oct 33.8 °C 32 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
27 Oct 33.8 °C 32 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
28 Oct after 33.1 °C 31 % 37 km/h 1.3 mm High 28

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Oct 2017
After · 3 Nov 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 · 865Every 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 Sanga fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 14 October 2017 and 27 October 2017: 14 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 19,157 hectares (191.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Sanga (19,246 ha, 1.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.0 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, 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.