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Gorongosa fire, 2 September 2018 Gorongosa

Out · last detection 10 Sept 2018, 11:11 UTC

The fire started on 2 September 2018 in Gorongosa, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,856 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 91th largest in Sofala since 2016 (of 214 with a page). Number 80 in Mozambique in 2018, of 220.

Burnt area
4,856ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
2 Sept 2018 – 9 Sept 2018
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
2 Sept
2018
Heat detections
222
in a single hotspot: 60 MW
Danger at start
26
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 Sept 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Sept9 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

2345678910

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
49km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

25% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 878 ha in 2016, 351 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Gorongosa where it started
    4,882 ha reached on 31 Aug
    0.7 %

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)
2 Sept 30.4 °C 31 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
3 Sept 33.5 °C 31 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
4 Sept 34.1 °C 20 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
5 Sept 33.7 °C 30 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
6 Sept 33.9 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
7 Sept 33.5 °C 27 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
8 Sept 34.8 °C 23 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
9 Sept 32.8 °C 31 % 49 km/h 4.1 mm High 22
10 Sept after 25.1 °C 30 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
11 Sept after 27.2 °C 34 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
12 Sept after 29.1 °C 32 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
13 Sept after 31.8 °C 30 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
14 Sept after 32.8 °C 28 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
15 Sept after 33.6 °C 24 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
16 Sept after 33.4 °C 26 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
17 Sept after 33.8 °C 24 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
18 Sept after 35.6 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
19 Sept after 35.7 °C 16 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 Aug 2018
After · 16 Sept 2018

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 · 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Mozambique ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Gorongosa fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 2 September 2018 and 9 September 2018: 8 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 4,856 hectares (48.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Gorongosa (4,882 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.8 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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

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.