Bárue fire, 16 September 2023 Bárue
The fire started on 16 September 2023 in Bárue, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 22 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,769 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 53th largest in Manica since 2016 (of 198 with a page). Number 41 in Mozambique in 2023, of 128.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Bárue · 2016Bárue · 2022Bárue · 2019Bárue · 2020
- Burnt area
- 5,769ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 22days
- 16 Sept 2023 – 7 Oct 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 16 Sept
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 266
- in a single hotspot: 125 MW
- Danger at start
- 12
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 284MW
- 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 one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 13.5 mm on 2 Oct.
This area had burned before
100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,553 ha in 2016, 2,722 ha in 2017, 1,723 ha in 2018, 2,368 ha in 2019, 1,642 ha in 2020, 3,248 ha in 2021, 2,315 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,743 ha that had burned before.
- 2,852 ha Bárue fire, September 2016 11,541 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 994 ha Bárue fire, September 2022 13,764 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 948 ha Bárue fire, August 2019 4,157 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 538 ha Bárue fire, September 2020 7,099 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 517 ha Bárue fire, September 2017 3,303 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 491 ha Bárue fire, September 2018 8,887 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 489 ha Bárue fire, September 2021 3,146 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 190 ha Bárue fire, September 2018 3,388 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
-
Bárue where it started5,809 ha reached on 16 Sept1.0 %
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.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 14 hectares of built-up land and about 3,000 residents (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
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 Sept | 34.5 °C | 30 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 17 Sept | 35.3 °C | 25 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 18 Sept | 29.0 °C | 48 % | 34 km/h | 0.4 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 19 Sept | 29.2 °C | 44 % | 22 km/h | 1.1 mm | Low 7 |
| 20 Sept | 31.0 °C | 34 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 21 Sept | 31.8 °C | 37 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 22 Sept | 31.4 °C | 32 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 23 Sept | 31.0 °C | 38 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 24 Sept | 32.6 °C | 35 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 25 Sept | 31.9 °C | 40 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 26 Sept | 34.4 °C | 35 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 27 Sept | 29.4 °C | 50 % | 26 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 28 Sept | 30.7 °C | 45 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 29 Sept | 29.8 °C | 49 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 30 Sept | 33.5 °C | 40 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 1 Oct | 36.5 °C | 27 % | 41 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 31 |
| 2 Oct | 22.8 °C | 87 % | 42 km/h | 13.5 mm | Very low 0 |
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.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 14 September 2023 the air beside the fire reached 96 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 51: 3.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)
Detections table · 266Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 13,764 haBárue9 September 2022 · 23 days · 14 km away
- 25,445 haBárue5 September 2016 · 18 days · 15 km away
- 14,805 haBárue21 August 2026 · 15 days · 15 km away
- 13,314 haBárue11 September 2026 · 18 days · 18 km away
- 30,185 haMacossa22 August 2025 · 39 days · 29 km away
- 27,713 haMacossa1 September 2023 · 25 days · 30 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Bárue fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 16 September 2023 to 7 October 2023 (22 days). The perimeter dates it from 16 September 2023 to 30 September 2023.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,769 hectares (57.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Bárue (5,809 ha, 1.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.3 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 20, class Moderate.
- 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 · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 30 September 2023 → 7 October 2023.
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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 16 September 2023 to 30 September 2023. 266 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.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.