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Bárue fire, August 2016 Bárue, Macossa

Out · last detection 30 Sept 2016, 11:24 UTC

The fire started on 29 August 2016 in Bárue, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 32 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 25,445 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 4th largest in Manica since 2016 (of 198 with a page). Number 7 in Mozambique in 2016, of 194.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Bárue · 2026Bárue · 2022Bárue · 2026Macossa · 2025

Burnt area
25,445ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
32days
29 Aug 2016 – 29 Sept 2016
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
29 Aug
2016
Heat detections
1,624
in a single hotspot: 159 MW
Danger at start
18
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
707MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Aug29 Sept
30 Sept 2016

How it evolved, day by day

29 Aug 2016 · 14 MW · 1 30 Aug 2016 · 140 MW · 12 31 Aug 2016 · 107 MW · 15 1 Sept 2016 · 23 MW · 4 2 Sept 2016 · 26 MW · 2 3 Sept 2016 · 25 MW · 3 4 Sept 2016 · 0 MW · 1 5 Sept 2016 · 202 MW · 22 6 Sept 2016 · 1,261 MW · 82 7 Sept 2016 · 2,181 MW · 117 8 Sept 2016 · 1,273 MW · 86 9 Sept 2016 · 3,122 MW · 145 10 Sept 2016 · 2,027 MW · 160 11 Sept 2016 · 1,117 MW · 91 12 Sept 2016 · 1,213 MW · 129 13 Sept 2016 · 1,608 MW · 113 14 Sept 2016 · 145 MW · 17 15 Sept 2016 · 1,810 MW · 95 16 Sept 2016 · 1,095 MW · 75 17 Sept 2016 · 1,434 MW · 108 18 Sept 2016 · 113 MW · 19 19 Sept 2016 · 299 MW · 18 20 Sept 2016 · 15 MW · 1 21 Sept 2016 · 224 MW · 16 22 Sept 2016 · 766 MW · 71 23 Sept 2016 · 1,473 MW · 60 24 Sept 2016 · 205 MW · 23 25 Sept 2016 · 78 MW · 8 26 Sept 2016 · 367 MW · 19 27 Sept 2016 · 195 MW · 23 28 Sept 2016 · 581 MW · 61 29 Sept 2016 · 146 MW · 22 30 Sept 2016 · 52 MW · 5
29 Aug 3 Sept 8 Sept 9 Sept 13 Sept 18 Sept 23 Sept 28 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

36°high
42km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 13.0 mm on 3 Oct.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 16% of the area of London (254 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. Bárue where it started
    22,842 ha reached on 29 Aug
    3.9 %
  2. Macossa
    2,750 ha reached on 30 Aug
    0.3 %

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)
29 Aug 27.5 °C 38 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
30 Aug 27.6 °C 37 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
31 Aug 26.7 °C 33 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
1 Sept 24.7 °C 43 % 33 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 21
2 Sept 24.9 °C 40 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
3 Sept 25.8 °C 41 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
4 Sept 27.1 °C 43 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
5 Sept 28.6 °C 34 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
6 Sept 31.6 °C 32 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
7 Sept 31.4 °C 28 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
8 Sept 33.3 °C 26 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
9 Sept 33.7 °C 20 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
10 Sept 32.8 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
11 Sept 27.7 °C 42 % 36 km/h 0.6 mm High 27
12 Sept 28.9 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
13 Sept 30.9 °C 31 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
14 Sept 28.0 °C 42 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
15 Sept 30.9 °C 33 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
16 Sept 33.6 °C 24 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
17 Sept 35.5 °C 23 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
18 Sept 31.8 °C 34 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
19 Sept 28.3 °C 40 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
20 Sept 27.9 °C 40 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
21 Sept 30.4 °C 34 % 28 km/h 0.1 mm High 26
22 Sept 32.6 °C 22 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
23 Sept 35.1 °C 19 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
24 Sept 33.8 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
25 Sept 33.7 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
26 Sept 30.3 °C 30 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
27 Sept 32.3 °C 26 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
28 Sept 35.8 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
29 Sept 32.7 °C 28 % 37 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 40
30 Sept after 32.5 °C 26 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
1 Oct after 33.7 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
2 Oct after 34.1 °C 28 % 52 km/h 0.9 mm High 35
3 Oct after 21.3 °C 62 % 56 km/h 13.0 mm Very low 2

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Aug 2016
After · 6 Oct 2016

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 · 1,624Every 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 Bárue fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 29 August 2016 to 29 September 2016 (32 days). The perimeter dates it from 5 September 2016 to 22 September 2016.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 25,445 hectares (254.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Bárue (22,842 ha, 3.9 %); Macossa (2,750 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.8 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 42 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

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: 22 September 2016 → 29 September 2016.
  2. Start date: 5 September 2016 → 29 August 2016.

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.

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How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 5 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 5 September 2016 to 22 September 2016. 1,624 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.