Skip to content
worldfires
en
MZ · Mozambique · →

Mossuril fire, 27 October 2020 Mossuril

Out · last detection 26 Nov 2020, 10:21 UTC

The fire started on 27 October 2020 in Mossuril, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 31 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,659 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 71th largest in Nampula since 2016 (of 392 with a page). Number 38 in Mozambique in 2020, of 193.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Mossuril · 2025Mossuril · 2026Mossuril · 2026Mossuril · 2026

Burnt area
7,659ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
31days
27 Oct 2020 – 26 Nov 2020
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
27 Oct
2020
Heat detections
566
in a single hotspot: 286 MW
Danger at start
9
Low · FWI index
Average daily power
349MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Oct26 Nov
26 Nov 2020

How it evolved, day by day

27 Oct 2020 · 307 MW · 7 28 Oct 2020 · 19 MW · 4 29 Oct 2020 · 97 MW · 13 30 Oct 2020 · 258 MW · 25 31 Oct 2020 · 50 MW · 5 2 Nov 2020 · 880 MW · 35 3 Nov 2020 · 1,234 MW · 45 4 Nov 2020 · 1,805 MW · 37 5 Nov 2020 · 632 MW · 52 6 Nov 2020 · 1,168 MW · 29 7 Nov 2020 · 227 MW · 19 8 Nov 2020 · 130 MW · 8 9 Nov 2020 · 162 MW · 20 10 Nov 2020 · 143 MW · 19 11 Nov 2020 · 65 MW · 5 12 Nov 2020 · 154 MW · 10 13 Nov 2020 · 123 MW · 5 14 Nov 2020 · 151 MW · 14 15 Nov 2020 · 364 MW · 26 16 Nov 2020 · 662 MW · 45 17 Nov 2020 · 188 MW · 29 18 Nov 2020 · 52 MW · 6 19 Nov 2020 · 269 MW · 19 20 Nov 2020 · 49 MW · 7 21 Nov 2020 · 47 MW · 6 22 Nov 2020 · 72 MW · 7 23 Nov 2020 · 622 MW · 14 24 Nov 2020 · 251 MW · 21 25 Nov 2020 · 219 MW · 23 26 Nov 2020 · 80 MW · 11
27 Oct 2 Nov 4 Nov 7 Nov 12 Nov 17 Nov 22 Nov

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
46km/h · peak gust
55%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

46% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,587 ha in 2016, 1,784 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,531 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 4.8% of the area of London (77 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. Mossuril where it started
    7,717 ha reached on 27 Oct
    2.3 %

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 area10 ha
Residents≈ 1,700

Inside the perimeter there were about 10 hectares of built-up land and about 1,700 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)
27 Oct 27.2 °C 73 % 31 km/h 0.4 mm Low 9
28 Oct 27.4 °C 69 % 27 km/h 0.1 mm Low 10
29 Oct 27.3 °C 69 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
30 Oct 27.8 °C 71 % 31 km/h 0.6 mm Moderate 12
31 Oct 28.1 °C 67 % 33 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 14
1 Nov 28.1 °C 62 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
2 Nov 28.1 °C 67 % 27 km/h 0.5 mm Moderate 14
3 Nov 28.6 °C 62 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
4 Nov 29.6 °C 59 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
5 Nov 29.7 °C 55 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
6 Nov 29.6 °C 57 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
7 Nov 29.6 °C 58 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
8 Nov 29.5 °C 63 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
9 Nov 29.2 °C 65 % 41 km/h 0.1 mm High 24
10 Nov 29.5 °C 64 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
11 Nov 28.0 °C 62 % 34 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 20
12 Nov 28.5 °C 67 % 29 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 18
13 Nov 26.4 °C 78 % 42 km/h 1.9 mm Low 9
14 Nov 26.3 °C 57 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
15 Nov 28.0 °C 55 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
16 Nov 27.8 °C 65 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
17 Nov 29.4 °C 58 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
18 Nov 29.7 °C 61 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
19 Nov 30.4 °C 57 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
20 Nov 30.4 °C 59 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
21 Nov 28.2 °C 68 % 33 km/h 0.6 mm Moderate 17
22 Nov 28.4 °C 68 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
23 Nov 29.3 °C 66 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
24 Nov 30.7 °C 59 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
25 Nov 30.9 °C 56 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
26 Nov 30.5 °C 60 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
27 Nov after 29.4 °C 63 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
28 Nov after 29.4 °C 64 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
29 Nov after 29.8 °C 66 % 32 km/h 0.6 mm Moderate 17
30 Nov after 30.1 °C 65 % 37 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 20
1 Dec after 30.8 °C 63 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
2 Dec after 31.4 °C 56 % 55 km/h 0.1 mm High 33
3 Dec after 30.4 °C 64 % 40 km/h 0.2 mm High 27
4 Dec after 30.0 °C 62 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
5 Dec after 28.9 °C 66 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
6 Dec after 29.1 °C 70 % 32 km/h 0.8 mm Moderate 14

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 20 Oct 2020
After · 3 Dec 2020

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 · 566Every 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 Mossuril fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 27 October 2020 to 26 November 2020 (31 days). The perimeter dates it from 29 October 2020 to 19 November 2020.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 7,659 hectares (76.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mossuril (7,717 ha, 2.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.9 °C, humidity dropped to 55 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 29, class 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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 19 November 2020 → 26 November 2020.
  2. Start date: 29 October 2020 → 27 October 2020.

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.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy.

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 29 October 2020 to 19 November 2020. 566 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.