Macossa fire, 31 August 2023 Macossa, Bárue
The fire started on 31 August 2023 in Macossa, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,207 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 95th largest in Manica since 2016 (of 198 with a page). Number 71 in Mozambique in 2023, of 128.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 4,207ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 13days
- 31 Aug 2023 – 12 Sept 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 31 Aug
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 144
- in a single hotspot: 201 MW
- Danger at start
- 31
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 241MW
- 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 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 14 Sept.
This area had burned before
100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,077 ha in 2016, 1,414 ha in 2017, 2,362 ha in 2018, 2,074 ha in 2019, 728 ha in 2020, 1,999 ha in 2021, 2,615 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,197 ha that had burned before.
- 2,054 ha Macossa fire, September 2022 5,238 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,679 ha Macossa fire, August 2016 8,469 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,025 ha Macossa fire, August 2018 7,699 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 397 ha Bárue fire, September 2020 3,879 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
-
Macossa where it started3,664 ha reached on 31 Aug0.4 %
-
560 ha reached on 2 Sept0.1 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 Sept | 29.6 °C | 32 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 5 Sept | 29.9 °C | 30 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 6 Sept | 31.7 °C | 24 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 7 Sept | 29.0 °C | 34 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 8 Sept | 29.6 °C | 33 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 9 Sept | 29.1 °C | 31 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 10 Sept | 31.2 °C | 30 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 11 Sept | 33.8 °C | 23 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 12 Sept | 33.9 °C | 28 % | 60 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 13 Sept after | 19.7 °C | 77 % | 51 km/h | 0.5 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 14 Sept after | 25.7 °C | 43 % | 36 km/h | 1.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
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 3 September 2023 the air beside the fire reached 105 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 61: 4.1 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 · 144Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 28,721 haMacossa11 September 2026 · 18 days · 4 km away
- 27,713 haBárue31 August 2023 · 32 days · 21 km away
- 30,185 haMacossa22 August 2025 · 39 days · 22 km away
- 12,745 haBárue18 September 2017 · 30 days · 22 km away
- 12,021 haBárue30 September 2017 · 25 days · 26 km away
- 9,737 haBárue17 September 2022 · 30 days · 26 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Macossa fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 31 August 2023 to 12 September 2023 (13 days). The perimeter dates it from 4 September 2023 to 12 September 2023.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 4,207 hectares (42.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Macossa (3,664 ha, 0.4 %); Bárue (560 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 33.9 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 60 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 55, class Extreme.
- 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.
- Start date: 4 September 2023 → 31 August 2023.
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 4 September 2023 to 12 September 2023. 144 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.