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Sanga fire, 3 October 2018 Sanga

Out · last detection 17 Oct 2018, 11:19 UTC

The fire started on 3 October 2018 in Sanga, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,528 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 260th largest in Niassa since 2016 (of 577 with a page). Number 94 in Mozambique in 2018, of 220.

The power measured by the satellite is low (17.3 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
4,528ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
15days
3 Oct 2018 – 17 Oct 2018
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
3 Oct
2018
Heat detections
120
in a single hotspot: 17 MW
Danger at start
30
High · FWI index
Energy released
556MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

17 Oct 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Oct17 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

34567891011121314151617

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
43km/h · peak gust
26%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.7 mm on 21 Oct.

This area had burned before

40% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,372 ha in 2016, 509 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Sanga where it started
    4,549 ha reached on 3 Oct
    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)
3 Oct 30.7 °C 42 % 39 km/h 0.2 mm High 30
4 Oct 30.7 °C 40 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
5 Oct 29.4 °C 39 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
6 Oct 29.8 °C 35 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
7 Oct 30.2 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
8 Oct 30.9 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
9 Oct 28.4 °C 43 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
10 Oct 28.3 °C 50 % 43 km/h 0.3 mm High 30
11 Oct 30.2 °C 38 % 40 km/h 0.2 mm High 31
12 Oct 32.4 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
13 Oct 32.1 °C 31 % 41 km/h 0.1 mm High 35
14 Oct 31.5 °C 34 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
15 Oct 33.7 °C 30 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
16 Oct 34.4 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
17 Oct 33.8 °C 30 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
18 Oct after 33.3 °C 33 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
19 Oct after 33.1 °C 36 % 37 km/h 0.3 mm High 38
20 Oct after 32.8 °C 37 % 40 km/h 0.1 mm High 38
21 Oct after 28.9 °C 49 % 44 km/h 1.7 mm Moderate 15

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 Sept 2018
After · 24 Oct 2018

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 · 120Every 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 3 October 2018 and 17 October 2018: 15 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 4,528 hectares (45.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Sanga (4,549 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.4 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 43 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

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.