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MZ · Mozambique · –

Morrumbala fire, 9 September 2018 Morrumbala, Milange

Out · last detection 6 Oct 2018, 22:34 UTC

The fire started on 9 September 2018 in Morrumbala, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 28 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 38,678 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 38th largest in Zambézia since 2016 (of 839 with a page). Number 3 in Mozambique in 2018, of 220.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Morrumbala · 2017Milange · 2017Morrumbala · 2017Derre · 2022

Burnt area
38,678ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
28days
9 Sept 2018 – 6 Oct 2018
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
9 Sept
2018
Heat detections
2,145
in a single hotspot: 164 MW
Danger at start
38
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
871MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Sept6 Oct
6 Oct 2018

How it evolved, day by day

9 Sept 2018 · 778 MW · 81 12 Sept 2018 · 39 MW · 8 13 Sept 2018 · 83 MW · 15 14 Sept 2018 · 145 MW · 22 15 Sept 2018 · 146 MW · 20 16 Sept 2018 · 1,166 MW · 112 17 Sept 2018 · 738 MW · 53 18 Sept 2018 · 1,288 MW · 132 19 Sept 2018 · 3,183 MW · 278 20 Sept 2018 · 2,754 MW · 304 21 Sept 2018 · 3,279 MW · 313 22 Sept 2018 · 909 MW · 99 23 Sept 2018 · 498 MW · 49 24 Sept 2018 · 465 MW · 56 25 Sept 2018 · 509 MW · 38 26 Sept 2018 · 873 MW · 111 27 Sept 2018 · 2,755 MW · 171 28 Sept 2018 · 1,749 MW · 149 29 Sept 2018 · 416 MW · 49 30 Sept 2018 · 76 MW · 6 1 Oct 2018 · 27 MW · 4 2 Oct 2018 · 13 MW · 2 3 Oct 2018 · 18 MW · 4 4 Oct 2018 · 577 MW · 48 5 Oct 2018 · 38 MW · 5 6 Oct 2018 · 132 MW · 16
9 Sept 21 Sept 29 Sept 5 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
56km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 10 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.4 mm on 11 Oct.

This area had burned before

81% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 27,379 ha in 2016, 18,670 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 31,178 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 24% of the area of London (387 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 where it started
    28,318 ha reached on 9 Sept
    3.5 %
  2. Milange
    10,541 ha reached on 9 Sept
    1.9 %

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 area33 ha
Residents≈ 11,000

Inside the perimeter there were about 33 hectares of built-up land and about 11,000 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)
9 Sept 34.1 °C 21 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
10 Sept 21.6 °C 55 % 42 km/h 1.7 mm Low 10
11 Sept 26.2 °C 44 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
12 Sept 29.9 °C 31 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
13 Sept 32.8 °C 23 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
14 Sept 33.8 °C 27 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
15 Sept 34.9 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
16 Sept 35.4 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
17 Sept 34.1 °C 21 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
18 Sept 35.3 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
19 Sept 34.9 °C 21 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
20 Sept 36.0 °C 19 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
21 Sept 33.5 °C 23 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
22 Sept 31.1 °C 30 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
23 Sept 32.1 °C 28 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
24 Sept 33.2 °C 27 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
25 Sept 33.7 °C 25 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
26 Sept 35.2 °C 26 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
27 Sept 36.8 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
28 Sept 35.1 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
29 Sept 35.0 °C 24 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
30 Sept 27.2 °C 47 % 56 km/h 5.5 mm Low 8
1 Oct 26.9 °C 41 % 40 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 17
2 Oct 29.9 °C 35 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
3 Oct 34.4 °C 30 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
4 Oct 33.6 °C 26 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
5 Oct 28.6 °C 38 % 44 km/h 0.1 mm High 33
6 Oct 28.8 °C 33 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
7 Oct after 27.8 °C 35 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
8 Oct after 28.3 °C 40 % 37 km/h 0.8 mm High 23
9 Oct after 27.6 °C 46 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 21
10 Oct after 30.8 °C 34 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
11 Oct after 33.6 °C 32 % 31 km/h 1.4 mm High 23

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 Sept 2018
After · 13 Oct 2018

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 · 2,145Every 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 Morrumbala fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 9 September 2018 to 6 October 2018 (28 days). The perimeter dates it from 16 September 2018 to 29 September 2018.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 38,678 hectares (386.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Morrumbala (28,318 ha, 3.5 %); Milange (10,541 ha, 1.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.8 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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: 29 September 2018 → 6 October 2018.
  2. Start date: 16 September 2018 → 9 September 2018.

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; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 16 September 2018 to 29 September 2018. 2,145 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.