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Muanza fire, 16 October 2019 Muanza

Out · last detection 7 Nov 2019, 10:39 UTC

The fire started on 16 October 2019 in Muanza, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 22 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,831 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 28th largest in Sofala since 2016 (of 214 with a page). Number 18 in Mozambique in 2019, of 212.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Muanza · 2021Muanza · 2024

Burnt area
10,831ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
22days
16 Oct 2019 – 6 Nov 2019
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
16 Oct
2019
Heat detections
573
in a single hotspot: 87 MW
Danger at start
12
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
371MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Oct6 Nov
7 Nov 2019

How it evolved, day by day

16 Oct 2019 · 5 MW · 1 19 Oct 2019 · 101 MW · 16 20 Oct 2019 · 31 MW · 8 21 Oct 2019 · 370 MW · 29 23 Oct 2019 · 30 MW · 5 24 Oct 2019 · 56 MW · 9 25 Oct 2019 · 742 MW · 57 26 Oct 2019 · 417 MW · 42 27 Oct 2019 · 251 MW · 26 28 Oct 2019 · 4,587 MW · 286 29 Oct 2019 · 482 MW · 35 30 Oct 2019 · 61 MW · 9 31 Oct 2019 · 45 MW · 8 1 Nov 2019 · 3 MW · 1 2 Nov 2019 · 32 MW · 4 3 Nov 2019 · 34 MW · 11 4 Nov 2019 · 132 MW · 19 5 Nov 2019 · 25 MW · 3 6 Nov 2019 · 7 MW · 2 7 Nov 2019 · 5 MW · 2
16 Oct 21 Oct 25 Oct 28 Oct 31 Oct 3 Nov 6 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

40°high
54km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 6.9 mm on 15 Nov.

This area had burned before

21% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,869 ha in 2016, 677 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,314 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 6.8% of the area of London (108 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. Muanza where it started
    10,896 ha reached on 16 Oct
    1.4 %

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 area0.66 ha
Residents≈ 250

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.66 hectares of built-up land and about 250 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)
16 Oct 27.4 °C 58 % 54 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 12
17 Oct 27.2 °C 60 % 45 km/h 0.8 mm Low 9
18 Oct 26.7 °C 68 % 31 km/h 3.4 mm Very low 1
19 Oct 27.8 °C 72 % 37 km/h 2.2 mm Very low 2
20 Oct 28.2 °C 75 % 38 km/h 1.9 mm Very low 1
21 Oct 31.6 °C 65 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
22 Oct 31.3 °C 67 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
23 Oct 31.0 °C 61 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
24 Oct 36.6 °C 40 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
25 Oct 36.7 °C 38 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
26 Oct 35.9 °C 36 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
27 Oct 36.2 °C 41 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
28 Oct 39.7 °C 20 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
29 Oct 38.5 °C 25 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
30 Oct 30.0 °C 67 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
31 Oct 30.3 °C 63 % 40 km/h 0.6 mm Moderate 14
1 Nov 28.4 °C 60 % 49 km/h 0.8 mm Moderate 13
2 Nov 28.5 °C 52 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
3 Nov 30.7 °C 49 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
4 Nov 30.7 °C 52 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
5 Nov 28.8 °C 51 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
6 Nov 29.6 °C 53 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
7 Nov after 32.3 °C 56 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
8 Nov after 35.0 °C 43 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
9 Nov after 30.3 °C 72 % 46 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 17
10 Nov after 29.6 °C 63 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
11 Nov after 30.9 °C 57 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
12 Nov after 30.0 °C 58 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
13 Nov after 30.4 °C 58 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
14 Nov after 32.4 °C 54 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
15 Nov after 31.2 °C 67 % 43 km/h 6.9 mm Very low 3

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Oct 2019
After · 13 Nov 2019

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 · 573Every 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 Muanza fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 16 October 2019 to 6 November 2019 (22 days). The perimeter dates it from 23 October 2019 to 30 October 2019.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 10,831 hectares (108.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Muanza (10,896 ha, 1.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.7 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, 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: 30 October 2019 → 6 November 2019.
  2. Start date: 23 October 2019 → 16 October 2019.

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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 23 October 2019 to 30 October 2019. 573 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.