Derre fire, 25 September 2022 Derre
The fire started on 25 September 2022 in Derre, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 27 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 15,820 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 95th largest in Zambézia since 2016 (of 841 with a page). Number 17 in Mozambique in 2022, of 206.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Derre · 2016Derre · 2019Mocuba · 2018Derre · 2021
- Burnt area
- 15,820ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 27days
- 25 Sept 2022 – 21 Oct 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 25 Sept
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 920
- in a single hotspot: 74 MW
- Danger at start
- 34
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 389MW
- 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 10 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.4 mm on 29 Oct.
This area had burned before
97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 11,458 ha in 2016, 7,715 ha in 2017, 6,247 ha in 2018, 10,710 ha in 2019, 3,419 ha in 2020, 5,575 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 15,383 ha that had burned before.
- 9,506 ha Derre fire, August 2016 116,560 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,794 ha Derre fire, September 2019 10,860 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,715 ha Mocuba fire, September 2018 116,289 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,578 ha Derre fire, September 2021 3,339 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,106 ha Derre fire, September 2021 4,224 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,869 ha Derre fire, August 2017 3,629 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,726 ha Mocuba fire, September 2020 86,463 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,477 ha Derre fire, September 2017 14,637 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
-
Derre where it started15,890 ha reached on 25 Sept3.3 %
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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25 Sept | 32.7 °C | 28 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 26 Sept | 33.9 °C | 27 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 27 Sept | 34.9 °C | 22 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 28 Sept | 30.7 °C | 35 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 29 Sept | 31.2 °C | 38 % | 33 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 30 |
| 30 Sept | 33.2 °C | 24 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 1 Oct | 34.1 °C | 20 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 2 Oct | 34.3 °C | 25 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 3 Oct | 34.2 °C | 31 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 4 Oct | 37.0 °C | 20 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 5 Oct | 36.5 °C | 17 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 6 Oct | 36.0 °C | 23 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 7 Oct | 36.3 °C | 23 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 8 Oct | 33.3 °C | 35 % | 41 km/h | 0.4 mm | Very high 38 |
| 9 Oct | 34.1 °C | 27 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 10 Oct | 34.5 °C | 26 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 11 Oct | 33.3 °C | 26 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 12 Oct | 33.3 °C | 26 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 13 Oct | 34.9 °C | 26 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 14 Oct | 36.2 °C | 19 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 15 Oct | 36.4 °C | 17 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 16 Oct | 34.8 °C | 21 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 17 Oct | 34.5 °C | 23 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 18 Oct | 33.2 °C | 30 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 19 Oct | 32.5 °C | 38 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 20 Oct | 33.8 °C | 33 % | 31 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 35 |
| 21 Oct | 35.7 °C | 22 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 22 Oct after | 37.0 °C | 20 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 23 Oct after | 37.1 °C | 22 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 24 Oct after | 37.5 °C | 21 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 25 Oct after | 37.0 °C | 25 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 26 Oct after | 38.3 °C | 20 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 27 Oct after | 38.8 °C | 17 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 28 Oct after | 38.5 °C | 18 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 29 Oct after | 32.2 °C | 44 % | 35 km/h | 3.4 mm | Moderate 11 |
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 6 October 2022 the air beside the fire reached 224 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 77: 5.2 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 · 920Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 116,560 haDerre26 August 2016 · 45 days · 2 km away
- 72,800 haDerre4 September 2025 · 44 days · 11 km away
- 47,144 haDerre23 September 2022 · 34 days · 17 km away
- 72,301 haDerre21 August 2026 · 28 days · 20 km away
- 86,463 haMocuba8 September 2020 · 34 days · 21 km away
- 41,830 haMilange9 September 2020 · 33 days · 34 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Derre fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 25 September 2022 to 21 October 2022 (27 days). The perimeter dates it from 1 October 2022 to 14 October 2022.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 15,820 hectares (158.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Derre (15,890 ha, 3.3 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.0 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, class Extreme.
- 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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 14 October 2022 → 21 October 2022.
- Start date: 1 October 2022 → 25 September 2022.
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 1 October 2022 to 14 October 2022. 920 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.
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.