Gorongosa fire, 1 September 2023 Gorongosa
The fire started on 1 September 2023 in Gorongosa, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 13,157 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 17th largest in Sofala since 2016 (of 214 with a page). Number 11 in Mozambique in 2023, of 128.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 13,157ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 12days
- 1 Sept 2023 – 12 Sept 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 1 Sept
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 657
- in a single hotspot: 109 MW
- Danger at start
- 9
- Low · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 576MW
- 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 one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
98% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,633 ha in 2016, 4,706 ha in 2017, 4,505 ha in 2018, 7,835 ha in 2019, 3,832 ha in 2020, 10,460 ha in 2021, 10,119 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 12,869 ha that had burned before.
- 8,546 ha Gorongosa fire, September 2021 22,610 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 6,388 ha Gorongosa fire, September 2022 19,369 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,539 ha Gorongosa fire, September 2020 5,262 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,175 ha Gorongosa fire, August 2019 4,532 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,396 ha Gorongosa fire, September 2016 11,928 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,095 ha Gorongosa fire, September 2022 3,346 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 953 ha Gorongosa fire, October 2017 4,468 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 784 ha Gorongosa fire, September 2018 7,652 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
-
Gorongosa where it started13,235 ha reached on 1 Sept1.9 %
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.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 4.8 hectares of built-up land and about 1,300 residents (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Sept | 30.4 °C | 35 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 9 |
| 2 Sept | 29.6 °C | 40 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 11 |
| 3 Sept | 28.5 °C | 49 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 4 Sept | 29.0 °C | 46 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 5 Sept | 29.6 °C | 37 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 6 Sept | 30.2 °C | 36 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 7 Sept | 27.1 °C | 47 % | 27 km/h | 0.4 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 8 Sept | 27.7 °C | 47 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 9 Sept | 28.1 °C | 44 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 10 Sept | 31.2 °C | 38 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 11 Sept | 34.6 °C | 27 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 12 Sept | 29.1 °C | 47 % | 56 km/h | 12.4 mm | Very low 5 |
| 13 Sept after | 18.5 °C | 93 % | 37 km/h | 22.6 mm | Very low 0 |
| 14 Sept after | 23.9 °C | 62 % | 26 km/h | 2.8 mm | Very low 0 |
| 15 Sept after | 29.9 °C | 44 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 1 |
| 16 Sept after | 34.9 °C | 29 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 17 Sept after | 34.8 °C | 31 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 18 Sept after | 28.1 °C | 56 % | 31 km/h | 2.9 mm | Very low 2 |
| 19 Sept after | 28.9 °C | 47 % | 23 km/h | 0.4 mm | Low 5 |
| 20 Sept after | 30.4 °C | 44 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 9 |
| 21 Sept after | 31.1 °C | 41 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 22 Sept after | 31.1 °C | 33 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 23 Sept after | 31.4 °C | 38 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 24 Sept after | 32.3 °C | 39 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 25 Sept after | 31.3 °C | 45 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 26 Sept after | 33.8 °C | 36 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 27 Sept after | 29.1 °C | 50 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 28 Sept after | 30.2 °C | 49 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 29 Sept after | 29.5 °C | 53 % | 29 km/h | 0.2 mm | Moderate 16 |
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 12 September 2023 the air beside the fire reached 73 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 38: 2.5 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 · 657Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 22,610 haGorongosa24 September 2021 · 9 days · 2 km away
- 11,928 haGorongosa8 September 2016 · 17 days · 6 km away
- 19,369 haGorongosa29 September 2022 · 16 days · 8 km away
- 59,348 haGorongosa20 August 2025 · 40 days · 20 km away
- 60,863 haGorongosa30 August 2026 · 31 days · 27 km away
- 16,281 haGorongosa27 September 2022 · 13 days · 32 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Gorongosa fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 September 2023 and 12 September 2023: 12 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 13,157 hectares (131.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Gorongosa (13,235 ha, 1.9 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 34.9 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 23, 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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 657 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.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.