How long did the Gorongosa fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 16 October 2017 and 17 October 2017: 2 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 3,072 hectares (30.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Gorongosa (3,082 ha, 0.4 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 39.5 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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 · 2017-10-16 → 2017-10-17

Gorongosa fire, 16 October 2017 Gorongosa

Out · last detection 17 Oct 2017, 23:12 UTC

The fire started on 16 October 2017 in Gorongosa, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,072 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 207th largest in Sofala since 2016 (of 214 with a page). Number 179 in Mozambique in 2017, of 196.

Burnt area: 3,072ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 2days; 16 Oct 2017 – 17 Oct 2017
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 16 Oct; 2017
Heat detections: 126; in a single hotspot: 34 MW
Danger at start: 39; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 569MW; sum of detected power

Play back 17 Oct 2017

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Oct17 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

1617

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

The weather it burned in

40°high

34km/h · peak gust

10%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 21 Oct.

This area had burned before

8% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 255 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

Gorongosa where it started

3,082 ha reached on 9 Oct

0.4 %

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)
16 Oct	35.6 °C	13 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
17 Oct	39.5 °C	10 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
18 Oct after	24.7 °C	31 %	59 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
19 Oct after	26.7 °C	52 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
20 Oct after	32.9 °C	38 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
21 Oct after	31.6 °C	39 %	46 km/h	1.0 mm	High 24

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 9 Oct 2017

After · 24 Oct 2017

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.

Detections table · 126Every 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 Gorongosa fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 16 October 2017 and 17 October 2017: 2 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 3,072 hectares (30.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Gorongosa (3,082 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 39.5 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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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What really happened?

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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