How long did the Gorongosa fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 10 August 2024 and 14 August 2024: 5 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 3,111 hectares (31.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Gorongosa (3,126 ha, 0.5 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 32.7 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 31 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.

MZ · Mozambique · 2024-08-10 → 2024-08-14

Gorongosa fire, 10 August 2024 Gorongosa

Out · last detection 15 Aug 2024, 10:59 UTC

The fire started on 10 August 2024 in Gorongosa, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,111 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 201th largest in Sofala since 2016 (of 214 with a page). Number 142 in Mozambique in 2024, of 150.

Burnt area: 3,111ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 5days; 10 Aug 2024 – 14 Aug 2024
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 10 Aug; 2024
Heat detections: 110; in a single hotspot: 70 MW
Danger at start: 34; High · FWI index
Energy released: 1.2GW; sum of detected power

Play back 15 Aug 2024

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Aug14 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

101112131415

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

The weather it burned in

33°high

31km/h · peak gust

22%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.5 mm on 23 Aug.

This area had burned before

99% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 25 ha in 2016, 1,111 ha in 2017, 1,359 ha in 2018, 15 ha in 2019, 2,471 ha in 2022, 1,637 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,074 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Gorongosa where it started

3,126 ha reached on 10 Aug

0.5 %

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)
10 Aug	32.3 °C	23 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
11 Aug	31.7 °C	24 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
12 Aug	32.4 °C	22 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
13 Aug	28.7 °C	39 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
14 Aug	32.7 °C	22 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
15 Aug after	30.3 °C	34 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
16 Aug after	27.3 °C	42 %	32 km/h	0.2 mm	High 31
17 Aug after	27.4 °C	32 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
18 Aug after	28.0 °C	36 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
19 Aug after	27.2 °C	35 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
20 Aug after	25.8 °C	50 %	31 km/h	0.7 mm	Moderate 21
21 Aug after	27.4 °C	33 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
22 Aug after	28.4 °C	34 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
23 Aug after	20.7 °C	72 %	38 km/h	2.5 mm	Low 7

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 3 Aug 2024

After · 21 Aug 2024

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.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 14 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 46 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 28: 1.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak46 µg/m³

Days over the guideline5 days

PM1067 µg/m³

Optical depth0.55

WHO 15

891011121314151617

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 · 110Every 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 10 August 2024 and 14 August 2024: 5 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 3,111 hectares (31.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Gorongosa (3,126 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 32.7 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 31 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

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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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