Lugela fire, 7 September 2024 Lugela, Milange, Namarrói
The fire started on 7 September 2024 in Lugela, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 23 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 43,967 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 33th largest in Zambézia since 2016 (of 839 with a page). Number 3 in Mozambique in 2024, of 150.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 43,967ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 23days
- 7 Sept 2024 – 29 Sept 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- districts
- Started on
- 7 Sept
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 2,643
- in a single hotspot: 134 MW
- Danger at start
- 21
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 1.3GW
- 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. Rain came after the fire: 13.5 mm on 2 Oct.
This area had burned before
97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 25,117 ha in 2016, 19,198 ha in 2017, 19,992 ha in 2018, 10,642 ha in 2019, 21,500 ha in 2020, 15,603 ha in 2021, 30,364 ha in 2022, 14,137 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 42,676 ha that had burned before.
- 28,181 ha Lugela fire, September 2022 173,378 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 16,429 ha Lugela fire, September 2020 111,849 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 11,980 ha Lugela fire, September 2018 38,001 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 8,944 ha Namarrói fire, September 2016 77,917 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 6,275 ha Lugela fire, October 2017 14,882 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,799 ha Lugela fire, September 2021 8,941 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,759 ha Lugela fire, September 2017 4,612 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,261 ha Lugela fire, September 2019 5,504 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
-
Lugela where it started42,978 ha reached on 7 Sept7.0 %
-
1,124 ha reached on 10 Sept0.2 %
-
62 ha reached on 20 Sept0.0 %
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 16 hectares of built-up land and about 8,100 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7 Sept | 27.7 °C | 39 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 8 Sept | 30.7 °C | 34 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 9 Sept | 32.5 °C | 25 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 10 Sept | 28.7 °C | 38 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 11 Sept | 28.5 °C | 38 % | 39 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 26 |
| 12 Sept | 29.6 °C | 36 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 13 Sept | 32.2 °C | 24 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 14 Sept | 33.1 °C | 19 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 15 Sept | 33.3 °C | 22 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 16 Sept | 32.5 °C | 18 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 17 Sept | 32.0 °C | 24 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 18 Sept | 32.2 °C | 18 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 19 Sept | 32.1 °C | 23 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 20 Sept | 33.2 °C | 23 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 21 Sept | 31.6 °C | 28 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 22 Sept | 23.2 °C | 69 % | 37 km/h | 3.6 mm | Very low 5 |
| 23 Sept | 20.4 °C | 76 % | 41 km/h | 5.6 mm | Very low 0 |
| 24 Sept | 23.2 °C | 48 % | 34 km/h | 0.6 mm | Very low 5 |
| 25 Sept | 26.6 °C | 34 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 26 Sept | 31.3 °C | 29 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 27 Sept | 32.1 °C | 31 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 28 Sept | 32.5 °C | 31 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 29 Sept | 32.5 °C | 27 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 30 Sept after | 33.4 °C | 23 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 1 Oct after | 33.5 °C | 28 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 2 Oct after | 25.2 °C | 75 % | 36 km/h | 13.5 mm | Very low 0 |
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 17 September 2024 the air beside the fire reached 96 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 52: 3.4 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 · 2,643Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 188,911 haLugela3 September 2025 · 64 days · 8 km away
- 77,917 haNamarrói5 September 2016 · 51 days · 18 km away
- 74,073 haLugela10 August 2026 · 36 days · 21 km away
- 173,378 haLugelaSeptember 2022 · 48 days · 29 km away
- 94,650 haLugela 5 October 2026 · 23 days · 30 km away
- 99,267 haMilange7 September 2016 · 53 days · 34 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Lugela fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 7 September 2024 to 29 September 2024 (23 days). The perimeter dates it from 7 September 2024 to 22 September 2024.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 43,967 hectares (439.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Lugela (42,978 ha, 7.0 %); Milange (1,124 ha, 0.2 %); Namarrói (62 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 33.3 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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
History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 22 September 2024 → 29 September 2024.
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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 7 September 2024 to 22 September 2024. 2,643 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.