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Bárue fire, August 2023 Bárue

Out · last detection 26 Aug 2023, 23:06 UTC

The fire started on 16 August 2023 in Bárue, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,203 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 64th largest in Manica since 2016 (of 198 with a page). Number 48 in Mozambique in 2023, of 128.

Burnt area
5,203ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
16 Aug 2023 – 25 Aug 2023
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
16 Aug
2023
Heat detections
175
in a single hotspot: 75 MW
Danger at start
38
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

26 Aug 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Aug25 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

1617181920212223242526

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
51km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

49% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 229 ha in 2016, 129 ha in 2017, 381 ha in 2018, 1,917 ha in 2020, 669 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,540 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Bárue where it started
    5,219 ha reached on 14 Aug
    0.9 %

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)
16 Aug 24.7 °C 38 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
17 Aug 27.1 °C 33 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
18 Aug 28.9 °C 27 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
19 Aug 30.9 °C 21 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
20 Aug 30.6 °C 30 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
21 Aug 31.7 °C 22 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
22 Aug 32.8 °C 18 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
23 Aug 31.9 °C 17 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
24 Aug 31.6 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
25 Aug 30.7 °C 31 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
26 Aug after 32.9 °C 26 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
27 Aug after 25.0 °C 49 % 73 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 45
28 Aug after 20.0 °C 53 % 61 km/h 0.2 mm High 33
29 Aug after 19.6 °C 54 % 54 km/h 0.3 mm High 29
30 Aug after 22.4 °C 41 % 48 km/h 0.3 mm High 29
31 Aug after 26.1 °C 30 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
1 Sept after 30.1 °C 23 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
2 Sept after 30.6 °C 25 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
3 Sept after 29.8 °C 31 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
4 Sept after 30.0 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 36

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Aug 2023
After · 1 Sept 2023

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 · 175Every 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?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 16 August 2023 and 25 August 2023: 10 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 5,203 hectares (52.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Bárue (5,219 ha, 0.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.8 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 51 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.