How long did the Chinde fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 6 September 2025 and 22 September 2025: 17 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 3,568 hectares (35.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Chinde (3,585 ha, 1.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 37.0 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 41 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.

MZ · Mozambique · 2025-09-06 → 2025-09-22

Chinde fire, 6 September 2025 Chinde

Out · last detection 23 Sept 2025, 11:27 UTC

The fire started on 6 September 2025 in Chinde, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,568 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 622th largest in Zambézia since 2016 (of 845 with a page). Number 228 in Mozambique in 2025, of 313.

Burnt area: 3,568ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 17days; 6 Sept 2025 – 22 Sept 2025
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 6 Sept; 2025
Heat detections: 136; in a single hotspot: 33 MW
Danger at start: 28; High · FWI index
Energy released: 523MW; sum of detected power

Play back 23 Sept 2025

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Sept22 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

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Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

37°high

41km/h · peak gust

28%lowest humidity

It had gone 19 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.3 mm on 30 Sept.

This area had burned before

92% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 116 ha in 2016, 1,610 ha in 2017, 1,812 ha in 2018, 91 ha in 2019, 361 ha in 2022, 1,890 ha in 2023, 223 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,273 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Chinde where it started

3,585 ha reached on 30 Aug

1.1 %

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)
6 Sept	32.8 °C	43 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
7 Sept	32.2 °C	47 %	33 km/h	0.7 mm	High 24
8 Sept	32.0 °C	50 %	31 km/h	0.6 mm	High 22
9 Sept	31.6 °C	56 %	37 km/h	1.9 mm	Moderate 12
10 Sept	31.5 °C	50 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
11 Sept	31.7 °C	45 %	31 km/h	0.1 mm	High 24
12 Sept	32.5 °C	40 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
13 Sept	30.7 °C	50 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
14 Sept	31.8 °C	40 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
15 Sept	31.6 °C	43 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
16 Sept	34.8 °C	33 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
17 Sept	37.0 °C	28 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
18 Sept	34.4 °C	36 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
19 Sept	31.6 °C	47 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
20 Sept	30.4 °C	46 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
21 Sept	30.7 °C	43 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
22 Sept	32.1 °C	39 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
23 Sept after	36.5 °C	33 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
24 Sept after	33.3 °C	46 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
25 Sept after	31.9 °C	49 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
26 Sept after	30.7 °C	49 %	40 km/h	0.9 mm	High 22
27 Sept after	28.5 °C	50 %	34 km/h	0.1 mm	High 23
28 Sept after	32.4 °C	42 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
29 Sept after	33.8 °C	45 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
30 Sept after	29.8 °C	62 %	39 km/h	3.3 mm	Low 8

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 30 Aug 2025

After · 29 Sept 2025

Before After

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 17 September 2025 the air beside the fire reached 70 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 25: 1.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak70 µg/m³

Days over the guideline11 days

PM1074 µg/m³

Optical depth0.72

WHO 15

45678910111213141516171819202122232425

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 · 136Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Mozambique ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Chinde fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 6 September 2025 and 22 September 2025: 17 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 3,568 hectares (35.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Chinde (3,585 ha, 1.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 37.0 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 41 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

Where it burned