Gorongosa fire, 27 August 2018 Gorongosa, Macossa
The fire started on 27 August 2018 in Gorongosa, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 21 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,285 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 39th largest in Sofala since 2016 (of 214 with a page). Number 37 in Mozambique in 2018, of 220.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 8,285ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 21days
- 27 Aug 2018 – 16 Sept 2018
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 27 Aug
- 2018
- Heat detections
- 346
- in a single hotspot: 172 MW
- Danger at start
- 22
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 238MW
- 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 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
52% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 858 ha in 2016, 4,282 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,333 ha that had burned before.
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
-
Gorongosa where it started7,154 ha reached on 27 Aug1.0 %
-
1,173 ha reached on 27 Aug0.1 %
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 Sept | 29.9 °C | 33 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 3 Sept | 32.9 °C | 35 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 4 Sept | 33.7 °C | 24 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 5 Sept | 33.0 °C | 32 % | 32 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 30 |
| 6 Sept | 33.1 °C | 36 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 7 Sept | 32.9 °C | 30 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 8 Sept | 34.4 °C | 25 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 9 Sept | 33.0 °C | 31 % | 50 km/h | 6.4 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 10 Sept | 23.7 °C | 34 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 11 Sept | 27.1 °C | 39 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 12 Sept | 28.8 °C | 38 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 13 Sept | 31.7 °C | 32 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 14 Sept | 32.9 °C | 32 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 15 Sept | 33.7 °C | 25 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 16 Sept | 33.3 °C | 29 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 17 Sept after | 33.9 °C | 26 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 18 Sept after | 35.2 °C | 24 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 19 Sept after | 35.2 °C | 20 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
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.
Detections table · 346Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Gorongosa fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 27 August 2018 to 16 September 2018 (21 days). The perimeter dates it from 2 September 2018 to 9 September 2018.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 8,285 hectares (82.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Gorongosa (7,154 ha, 1.0 %); Macossa (1,173 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 34.4 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 33, 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
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: 9 September 2018 → 16 September 2018.
- Start date: 2 September 2018 → 27 August 2018.
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 2 September 2018 to 9 September 2018. 346 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.