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Mocuba fire, 23 September 2022 Mocuba, Derre

Out · last detection 21 Oct 2022, 23:00 UTC

The fire started on 23 September 2022 in Mocuba, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 28 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 32,518 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 47th largest in Zambézia since 2016 (of 839 with a page). Number 8 in Mozambique in 2022, of 206.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Mocuba · 2020Mocuba · 2018Mocuba · 2019Mocuba · 2021

Burnt area
32,518ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
28days
23 Sept 2022 – 20 Oct 2022
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
23 Sept
2022
Heat detections
2,718
in a single hotspot: 162 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Average daily power
1.1GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Sept20 Oct
21 Oct 2022

How it evolved, day by day

23 Sept 2022 · 271 MW · 51 24 Sept 2022 · 238 MW · 23 25 Sept 2022 · 407 MW · 33 26 Sept 2022 · 746 MW · 50 27 Sept 2022 · 509 MW · 51 28 Sept 2022 · 240 MW · 23 29 Sept 2022 · 39 MW · 5 30 Sept 2022 · 282 MW · 36 1 Oct 2022 · 941 MW · 79 2 Oct 2022 · 949 MW · 112 3 Oct 2022 · 692 MW · 73 4 Oct 2022 · 2,684 MW · 186 5 Oct 2022 · 5,056 MW · 431 6 Oct 2022 · 4,995 MW · 424 7 Oct 2022 · 2,641 MW · 168 8 Oct 2022 · 910 MW · 62 9 Oct 2022 · 739 MW · 112 10 Oct 2022 · 1,728 MW · 163 11 Oct 2022 · 1,370 MW · 109 12 Oct 2022 · 1,375 MW · 111 13 Oct 2022 · 667 MW · 49 14 Oct 2022 · 585 MW · 55 15 Oct 2022 · 1,185 MW · 106 16 Oct 2022 · 662 MW · 68 17 Oct 2022 · 1,071 MW · 57 18 Oct 2022 · 282 MW · 31 19 Oct 2022 · 195 MW · 17 20 Oct 2022 · 180 MW · 9 21 Oct 2022 · 149 MW · 24
23 Sept 28 Sept 3 Oct 5 Oct 8 Oct 13 Oct 18 Oct

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
45km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.7 mm on 29 Oct.

This area had burned before

96% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 16,754 ha in 2016, 9,441 ha in 2017, 20,540 ha in 2018, 14,034 ha in 2019, 25,291 ha in 2020, 23,991 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 31,202 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 21% of the area of London (325 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. Mocuba where it started
    31,388 ha reached on 23 Sept
    3.6 %
  2. Derre
    1,308 ha reached on 27 Sept
    0.3 %

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 2020
Built-up area17 ha
Residents≈ 4,200

Inside the perimeter there were about 17 hectares of built-up land and about 4,200 residents (GHSL 2020, 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)
23 Sept 34.3 °C 27 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
24 Sept 32.8 °C 34 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
25 Sept 32.5 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
26 Sept 34.3 °C 26 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
27 Sept 34.8 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
28 Sept 30.9 °C 36 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
29 Sept 31.1 °C 38 % 32 km/h 0.1 mm High 30
30 Sept 33.0 °C 26 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
1 Oct 33.8 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
2 Oct 34.1 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
3 Oct 33.8 °C 33 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
4 Oct 36.8 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
5 Oct 36.3 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
6 Oct 35.6 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
7 Oct 35.9 °C 26 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
8 Oct 33.1 °C 37 % 37 km/h 0.4 mm High 37
9 Oct 34.0 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
10 Oct 34.5 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
11 Oct 33.2 °C 27 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
12 Oct 32.9 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
13 Oct 34.6 °C 28 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
14 Oct 36.1 °C 20 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
15 Oct 36.2 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
16 Oct 34.6 °C 23 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
17 Oct 34.3 °C 25 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
18 Oct 33.2 °C 32 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
19 Oct 32.6 °C 38 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
20 Oct 33.5 °C 33 % 30 km/h 0.2 mm High 36
21 Oct after 35.8 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
22 Oct after 36.7 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
23 Oct after 36.7 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
24 Oct after 37.0 °C 23 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
25 Oct after 36.5 °C 26 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
26 Oct after 38.1 °C 21 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
27 Oct after 38.2 °C 19 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
28 Oct after 38.0 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
29 Oct after 32.1 °C 45 % 40 km/h 1.7 mm Moderate 18

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Sept 2022
After · 27 Oct 2022

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 6 October 2022 the air beside the fire reached 228 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 80: 5.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak228 µg/m³
Days over the guideline26 days
PM10326 µg/m³
Optical depth1.36
212223242526272829301234567891011121314151617181920212223
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 · 2,718Every 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 Mocuba fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 23 September 2022 to 20 October 2022 (28 days). The perimeter dates it from 30 September 2022 to 13 October 2022.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 32,518 hectares (325.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mocuba (31,388 ha, 3.6 %); Derre (1,308 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.8 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, 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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 13 October 2022 → 20 October 2022.
  2. Start date: 30 September 2022 → 23 September 2022.

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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 30 September 2022 to 13 October 2022. 2,718 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 2020, 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.