Balama fire, 23 July 2023 Balama
The fire started on 23 July 2023 in Balama, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,969 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 10th largest in Cabo Delgado since 2016 (of 120 with a page). Number 25 in Mozambique in 2023, of 128.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Balama · 2019Balama · 2021Balama · 2020Balama · 2017
- Burnt area
- 7,969ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 9days
- 23 Jul 2023 – 31 Jul 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 23 Jul
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 209
- in a single hotspot: 62 MW
- Danger at start
- 27
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 286MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.8 mm on 2 Aug.
This area had burned before
58% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,414 ha in 2016, 981 ha in 2017, 1,628 ha in 2018, 2,812 ha in 2019, 1,842 ha in 2020, 2,386 ha in 2021, 142 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,648 ha that had burned before.
- 2,535 ha Balama fire, August 2019 7,983 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,386 ha Balama fire, August 2021 3,938 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,842 ha Balama fire, July 2020 3,469 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 981 ha Balama fire, July 2017 3,571 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 546 ha Balama fire, August 2018 3,359 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 156 ha Balama fire, July 2016 3,879 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Balama where it started8,011 ha reached on 22 Jul1.4 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23 Jul | 24.4 °C | 53 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 24 Jul | 27.3 °C | 40 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 25 Jul | 27.7 °C | 30 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 26 Jul | 26.2 °C | 38 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 27 Jul | 27.3 °C | 34 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 28 Jul | 27.5 °C | 36 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 29 Jul | 26.3 °C | 35 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 30 Jul | 26.9 °C | 37 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 31 Jul | 28.0 °C | 31 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 1 Aug after | 26.6 °C | 45 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 2 Aug after | 23.2 °C | 57 % | 46 km/h | 1.8 mm | Moderate 14 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · 209Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Balama fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 23 July 2023 and 31 July 2023: 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 7,969 hectares (79.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Balama (8,011 ha, 1.4 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 28.0 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, class 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.
Report an error
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. 209 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.
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.