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Bárue fire, 20 September 2023 Bárue, Manica

Out · last detection 11 Oct 2023, 10:53 UTC

The fire started on 20 September 2023 in Bárue, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 22 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,506 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 84th largest in Manica since 2016 (of 198 with a page). Number 60 in Mozambique in 2023, of 128.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Bárue · 2022Bárue · 2025Bárue · 2026Bárue · 2016

Burnt area
4,506ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
22days
20 Sept 2023 – 11 Oct 2023
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
20 Sept
2023
Heat detections
182
in a single hotspot: 63 MW
Danger at start
12
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
108MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Sept11 Oct
11 Oct 2023

How it evolved, day by day

20 Sept 2023 · 102 MW · 16 21 Sept 2023 · 19 MW · 4 22 Sept 2023 · 256 MW · 20 23 Sept 2023 · 109 MW · 11 24 Sept 2023 · 207 MW · 11 25 Sept 2023 · 86 MW · 4 26 Sept 2023 · 507 MW · 43 27 Sept 2023 · 22 MW · 3 28 Sept 2023 · 39 MW · 7 29 Sept 2023 · 25 MW · 4 30 Sept 2023 · 65 MW · 9 1 Oct 2023 · 341 MW · 24 3 Oct 2023 · 14 MW · 2 4 Oct 2023 · 65 MW · 2 5 Oct 2023 · 29 MW · 3 6 Oct 2023 · 18 MW · 3 7 Oct 2023 · 26 MW · 5 8 Oct 2023 · 96 MW · 3 10 Oct 2023 · 97 MW · 6 11 Oct 2023 · 34 MW · 2
20 Sept 23 Sept 26 Sept 29 Sept 3 Oct 6 Oct 10 Oct

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
39km/h · peak gust
28%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

50% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 904 ha in 2016, 20 ha in 2017, 865 ha in 2018, 269 ha in 2019, 483 ha in 2021, 482 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,264 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 2.8% of the area of London (45 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
    4,487 ha reached on 20 Sept
    0.8 %
  2. Manica
    57 ha reached on 20 Sept
    0.0 %

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 2025
Built-up area11 ha
Residents≈ 2,400

Inside the perimeter there were about 11 hectares of built-up land and about 2,400 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)
20 Sept 30.4 °C 36 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
21 Sept 31.4 °C 38 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
22 Sept 31.1 °C 33 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
23 Sept 30.9 °C 37 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
24 Sept 32.1 °C 36 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
25 Sept 31.8 °C 41 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
26 Sept 33.7 °C 36 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
27 Sept 28.1 °C 53 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
28 Sept 30.0 °C 47 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
29 Sept 29.2 °C 50 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
30 Sept 33.0 °C 41 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
1 Oct 36.2 °C 28 % 39 km/h 0.2 mm High 30
2 Oct 22.3 °C 87 % 38 km/h 14.8 mm Very low 0
3 Oct 25.1 °C 46 % 27 km/h 0.1 mm Very low 2
4 Oct 28.0 °C 33 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
5 Oct 31.6 °C 33 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
6 Oct 32.3 °C 36 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
7 Oct 34.0 °C 36 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
8 Oct 36.0 °C 31 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 21
9 Oct 30.0 °C 47 % 30 km/h 0.9 mm Moderate 13
10 Oct 30.4 °C 46 % 28 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 15
11 Oct 31.1 °C 38 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
12 Oct after 34.8 °C 29 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
13 Oct after 38.4 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
14 Oct after 35.6 °C 32 % 31 km/h 0.1 mm High 30

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Sept 2023
After · 18 Oct 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.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 3 October 2023 the air beside the fire reached 93 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 51: 3.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak93 µg/m³
Days over the guideline20 days
PM10133 µg/m³
Optical depth1.50
181920212223242526272829301234567
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 182Every 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 20 September 2023 to 11 October 2023 (22 days). The perimeter dates it from 20 September 2023 to 4 October 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 4,506 hectares (45.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Bárue (4,487 ha, 0.8 %); Manica (57 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.2 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 30, 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

History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 4 October 2023 → 11 October 2023.

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.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 20 September 2023 to 4 October 2023. 182 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.

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.