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Derre fire, 27 September 2022 Derre

Out · last detection 22 Oct 2022, 22:41 UTC

The fire started on 27 September 2022 in Derre, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 26 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,617 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 611th largest in Zambézia since 2016 (of 841 with a page). Number 146 in Mozambique in 2022, of 206.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Derre · 2019Derre · 2026Derre · 2025Derre · 2022

Burnt area
3,617ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
26days
27 Sept 2022 – 22 Oct 2022
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
27 Sept
2022
Heat detections
166
in a single hotspot: 125 MW
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
137MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Sept22 Oct
22 Oct 2022

How it evolved, day by day

27 Sept 2022 · 155 MW · 18 28 Sept 2022 · 9 MW · 1 2 Oct 2022 · 26 MW · 3 3 Oct 2022 · 49 MW · 5 4 Oct 2022 · 200 MW · 7 5 Oct 2022 · 44 MW · 6 6 Oct 2022 · 724 MW · 36 7 Oct 2022 · 393 MW · 19 8 Oct 2022 · 23 MW · 4 9 Oct 2022 · 7 MW · 3 10 Oct 2022 · 215 MW · 10 11 Oct 2022 · 162 MW · 17 12 Oct 2022 · 158 MW · 5 14 Oct 2022 · 74 MW · 4 15 Oct 2022 · 107 MW · 10 16 Oct 2022 · 123 MW · 5 17 Oct 2022 · 69 MW · 5 18 Oct 2022 · 44 MW · 4 22 Oct 2022 · 22 MW · 4
27 Sept 3 Oct 6 Oct 9 Oct 12 Oct 16 Oct 22 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

37°high
44km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 30 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

60% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 156 ha in 2016, 739 ha in 2017, 482 ha in 2018, 165 ha in 2019, 798 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,167 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 2.3% of the area of London (36 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. Derre where it started
    3,635 ha reached on 27 Sept
    0.8 %

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)
2 Oct 33.8 °C 27 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
3 Oct 34.2 °C 32 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
4 Oct 37.1 °C 22 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
5 Oct 36.5 °C 20 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
6 Oct 35.8 °C 25 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
7 Oct 36.2 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
8 Oct 32.3 °C 41 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
9 Oct 33.9 °C 30 % 31 km/h 0.1 mm High 35
10 Oct 34.4 °C 28 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
11 Oct 33.0 °C 28 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
12 Oct 33.6 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
13 Oct 35.1 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
14 Oct 36.0 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
15 Oct 36.3 °C 18 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
16 Oct 34.3 °C 24 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
17 Oct 34.0 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
18 Oct 33.0 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
19 Oct 32.4 °C 38 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
20 Oct 33.5 °C 35 % 33 km/h 0.6 mm High 32
21 Oct 34.6 °C 27 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
22 Oct 36.8 °C 22 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
23 Oct after 36.5 °C 24 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
24 Oct after 37.1 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
25 Oct after 36.4 °C 27 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 20 Sept 2022
After · 29 Oct 2022

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 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).

PM2.5 peak224 µg/m³
Days over the guideline26 days
PM10321 µg/m³
Optical depth1.68
25262728293012345678910111213141516171819202122232425
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 · 166Every 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 Derre fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 27 September 2022 to 22 October 2022 (26 days). The perimeter dates it from 2 October 2022 to 15 October 2022.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,617 hectares (36.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Derre (3,635 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.1 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, 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.
  1. Last day with fire: 15 October 2022 → 22 October 2022.
  2. Start date: 2 October 2022 → 27 September 2022.

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 2 October 2022 to 15 October 2022. 166 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.

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.