How long did the Chinde fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 14 September 2025 and 3 October 2025: 20 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 4,861 hectares (48.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Chinde (4,884 ha, 1.6 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 36.0 °C, humidity dropped to 34 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 32, 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.

MZ · Mozambique · 2025-09-14 → 2025-10-03

Chinde fire, 14 September 2025 Chinde

Out · last detection 3 Oct 2025, 11:39 UTC

The fire started on 14 September 2025 in Chinde, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 20 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,861 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 376th largest in Zambézia since 2016 (of 842 with a page). Number 136 in Mozambique in 2025, of 313.

Burnt area: 4,861ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 20days; 14 Sept 2025 – 3 Oct 2025
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 14 Sept; 2025
Heat detections: 222; in a single hotspot: 33 MW
Danger at start: 22; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 75MW; detected power per day, on average

Play back 3 Oct 2025

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Sept3 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

14 Sept 17 Sept 20 Sept 23 Sept 26 Sept 28 Sept 29 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

53km/h · peak gust

34%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.5 mm on 8 Oct.

This area had burned before

65% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 798 ha in 2018, 858 ha in 2019, 220 ha in 2020, 2,293 ha in 2022, 99 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,137 ha that had burned before.

1,527 ha Chinde fire, September 2022 3,179 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Chinde where it started

4,884 ha reached on 7 Sept

1.6 %

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)
14 Sept	30.2 °C	49 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
15 Sept	30.3 °C	50 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
16 Sept	32.7 °C	45 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
17 Sept	36.0 °C	34 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
18 Sept	32.5 °C	49 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
19 Sept	29.8 °C	58 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
20 Sept	29.3 °C	52 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
21 Sept	29.6 °C	48 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
22 Sept	31.1 °C	42 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
23 Sept	34.5 °C	41 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
24 Sept	31.9 °C	54 %	34 km/h	0.2 mm	High 27
25 Sept	30.4 °C	57 %	41 km/h	0.6 mm	High 22
26 Sept	29.6 °C	55 %	41 km/h	1.2 mm	Moderate 16
27 Sept	27.9 °C	53 %	37 km/h	0.2 mm	Moderate 20
28 Sept	31.1 °C	48 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
29 Sept	32.1 °C	53 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
30 Sept	29.1 °C	66 %	41 km/h	1.3 mm	Moderate 14
1 Oct	28.1 °C	51 %	53 km/h	1.0 mm	High 22
2 Oct	28.4 °C	45 %	32 km/h	0.2 mm	High 22
3 Oct	28.8 °C	42 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
4 Oct after	27.9 °C	55 %	53 km/h	0.5 mm	High 32
5 Oct after	28.1 °C	44 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
6 Oct after	31.1 °C	41 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
7 Oct after	33.8 °C	39 %	40 km/h	0.1 mm	High 34
8 Oct after	32.1 °C	51 %	45 km/h	1.5 mm	Moderate 21

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 7 Sept 2025

After · 10 Oct 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: 1.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak70 µg/m³

Days over the guideline6 days

PM1074 µg/m³

Optical depth0.82

WHO 15

12131415161718192021222324252627282930123456

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 · 222Every 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 14 September 2025 and 3 October 2025: 20 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 4,861 hectares (48.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Chinde (4,884 ha, 1.6 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 36.0 °C, humidity dropped to 34 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 32, 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

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