Milange fire, 4 October 2022 Milange, Morrumbala
The fire started on 4 October 2022 in Milange, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 14,998 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 100th largest in Zambézia since 2016 (of 842 with a page). Number 19 in Mozambique in 2022, of 206.
- Burnt area
- 14,998ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 14days
- 4 Oct 2022 – 17 Oct 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 4 Oct
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 800
- in a single hotspot: 80 MW
- Danger at start
- 36
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 7.6GW
- sum of detected power
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 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.8 mm on 29 Oct.
This area had burned before
100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 13,894 ha in 2016, 7,099 ha in 2017, 10,873 ha in 2018, 10,736 ha in 2019, 9,292 ha in 2020, 1,404 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 14,965 ha that had burned before.
- 13,135 ha Morrumbala fire, September 2016 75,456 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 8,468 ha Milange fire, September 2019 16,916 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 6,574 ha Morrumbala fire, September 2018 38,678 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,924 ha Morrumbala fire, September 2017 12,018 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,423 ha Milange fire, September 2020 6,794 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,977 ha Milange fire, September 2020 13,746 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 529 ha Morrumbala fire, September 2020 3,368 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 495 ha Morrumbala fire, September 2018 5,077 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Milange where it started14,304 ha reached on 27 Sept2.6 %
-
798 ha reached on 3 Oct0.1 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 27 Sept | 34.0 °C | 24 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 28 Sept | 30.6 °C | 35 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 29 Sept | 30.8 °C | 38 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 30 Sept | 32.1 °C | 26 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 1 Oct | 33.0 °C | 24 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 2 Oct | 33.3 °C | 27 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 3 Oct | 33.7 °C | 31 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 4 Oct | 35.8 °C | 24 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 5 Oct | 35.4 °C | 19 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 6 Oct | 35.2 °C | 23 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 7 Oct | 35.5 °C | 23 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 8 Oct | 33.0 °C | 33 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 9 Oct | 33.5 °C | 26 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 10 Oct | 34.0 °C | 27 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 11 Oct | 32.7 °C | 25 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 12 Oct | 33.0 °C | 26 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 13 Oct | 34.3 °C | 27 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 14 Oct | 35.1 °C | 20 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 15 Oct | 35.0 °C | 20 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 16 Oct | 34.1 °C | 21 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 17 Oct | 33.5 °C | 25 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 18 Oct after | 32.6 °C | 32 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 19 Oct after | 31.3 °C | 42 % | 34 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 31 |
| 20 Oct after | 32.6 °C | 34 % | 34 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 31 |
| 21 Oct after | 34.0 °C | 27 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 22 Oct after | 35.5 °C | 22 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 23 Oct after | 35.4 °C | 26 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 24 Oct after | 36.4 °C | 24 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 25 Oct after | 35.0 °C | 30 % | 24 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 37 |
| 26 Oct after | 37.1 °C | 23 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 27 Oct after | 37.5 °C | 19 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 28 Oct after | 37.1 °C | 22 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 29 Oct after | 31.1 °C | 49 % | 39 km/h | 4.8 mm | Low 7 |
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.
Detections table · 800Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Milange fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 October 2022 and 17 October 2022: 14 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 14,998 hectares (150.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Milange (14,304 ha, 2.6 %); Morrumbala (798 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.4 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 43 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
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
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.