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Milange fire, 17 September 2017 Morrumbala, Milange

Out · last detection 2 Oct 2017, 22:53 UTC

The fire started on 17 September 2017 in Milange, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,648 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 126th largest in Zambézia since 2016 (of 842 with a page). Number 14 in Mozambique in 2017, of 196.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Derre · 2016Morrumbala · 2016Derre · 2022Derre · 2026

Burnt area
12,648ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
15days
17 Sept 2017 – 1 Oct 2017
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
17 Sept
2017
Heat detections
880
in a single hotspot: 90 MW
Danger at start
33
High · FWI index
Average daily power
461MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Sept1 Oct
2 Oct 2017

How it evolved, day by day

17 Sept 2017 · 839 MW · 51 18 Sept 2017 · 261 MW · 12 19 Sept 2017 · 54 MW · 7 20 Sept 2017 · 220 MW · 22 21 Sept 2017 · 16 MW · 4 22 Sept 2017 · 392 MW · 39 23 Sept 2017 · 342 MW · 38 24 Sept 2017 · 451 MW · 43 25 Sept 2017 · 711 MW · 72 26 Sept 2017 · 2,368 MW · 173 27 Sept 2017 · 653 MW · 61 28 Sept 2017 · 236 MW · 29 30 Sept 2017 · 184 MW · 24 1 Oct 2017 · 137 MW · 22 2 Oct 2017 · 56 MW · 8
17 Sept 20 Sept 23 Sept 26 Sept 30 Sept

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
46km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

58% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 7,570 ha in 2016.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 8% of the area of London (126 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Morrumbala
    8,885 ha reached on 11 Sept
    1.1 %
  2. Milange where it started
    3,822 ha reached on 10 Sept
    0.7 %

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 2015
Built-up area5.4 ha
Residents≈ 2,100

Inside the perimeter there were about 5.4 hectares of built-up land and about 2,100 residents (GHSL 2015, 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.

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)
10 Sept 31.7 °C 26 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
11 Sept 31.5 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
12 Sept 31.8 °C 28 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
13 Sept 32.9 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
14 Sept 34.1 °C 24 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
15 Sept 32.0 °C 21 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
16 Sept 32.3 °C 29 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
17 Sept 35.5 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
18 Sept 32.7 °C 32 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
19 Sept 30.3 °C 45 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
20 Sept 32.4 °C 37 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
21 Sept 29.5 °C 46 % 35 km/h 0.2 mm High 28
22 Sept 30.9 °C 38 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
23 Sept 34.2 °C 24 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
24 Sept 28.9 °C 40 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
25 Sept 31.2 °C 35 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
26 Sept 36.9 °C 21 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
27 Sept 36.5 °C 25 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
28 Sept 33.5 °C 33 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
29 Sept 29.1 °C 50 % 39 km/h 1.0 mm Moderate 20
30 Sept 30.5 °C 41 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
1 Oct 30.1 °C 37 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
2 Oct after 31.1 °C 41 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
3 Oct after 32.9 °C 30 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
4 Oct after 33.8 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
5 Oct after 36.0 °C 21 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
6 Oct after 36.8 °C 22 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
7 Oct after 35.9 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
8 Oct after 35.0 °C 25 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
9 Oct after 36.4 °C 26 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
10 Oct after 37.0 °C 28 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
11 Oct after 36.4 °C 33 % 40 km/h 0.4 mm Very high 45
12 Oct after 29.4 °C 60 % 35 km/h 0.8 mm Moderate 19
13 Oct after 31.4 °C 24 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
14 Oct after 26.7 °C 44 % 34 km/h 0.4 mm High 29
15 Oct after 32.1 °C 28 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
16 Oct after 38.3 °C 11 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
17 Oct after 40.3 °C 12 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
18 Oct after 37.0 °C 23 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 10 Sept 2017
After · 8 Oct 2017

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 · 880Every 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 Milange fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 17 September 2017 and 1 October 2017: 15 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 12,648 hectares (126.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Morrumbala (8,885 ha, 1.1 %); Milange (3,822 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.9 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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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How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 880 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 2015, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.