Muanza fire, 30 September 2023 Muanza
The fire started on 30 September 2023 in Muanza, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,139 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 61th largest in Sofala since 2016 (of 214 with a page). Number 34 in Mozambique in 2023, of 128.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Muanza · 2019Muanza · 2016Muanza · 2018Muanza · 2021
- Burnt area
- 6,139ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 15days
- 30 Sept 2023 – 14 Oct 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 30 Sept
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 294
- in a single hotspot: 59 MW
- Danger at start
- 25
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 206MW
- detected power per day, on average
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 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.4 mm on 15 Oct.
This area had burned before
94% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,449 ha in 2016, 3,145 ha in 2017, 1,395 ha in 2018, 3,733 ha in 2019, 1,332 ha in 2020, 2,791 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,743 ha that had burned before.
- 3,196 ha Muanza fire, October 2019 117,404 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,269 ha Muanza fire, September 2016 7,386 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,057 ha Muanza fire, October 2018 4,451 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 445 ha Muanza fire, October 2021 5,821 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 32 ha Muanza fire, October 2019 6,504 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Muanza where it started6,172 ha reached on 30 Sept0.8 %
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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7 Oct | 36.4 °C | 33 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 8 Oct | 37.0 °C | 35 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 9 Oct | 31.7 °C | 48 % | 40 km/h | 1.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 10 Oct | 33.7 °C | 40 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 11 Oct | 33.0 °C | 42 % | 38 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 23 |
| 12 Oct | 36.5 °C | 32 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 13 Oct | 40.9 °C | 22 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 14 Oct | 36.2 °C | 35 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 15 Oct after | 26.2 °C | 79 % | 48 km/h | 2.4 mm | Low 6 |
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.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 14 October 2023 the air beside the fire reached 109 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 44: 3.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 294Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 79,141 haMuanza 10 October 2026 · 14 days · 5 km away
- 117,404 haMuanza10 October 2019 · 36 days · 25 km away
- 58,511 haMuanza7 October 2019 · 39 days · 26 km away
- 12,278 haMuanza25 October 2025 · 15 days · 28 km away
- 20,954 haMuanza8 October 2016 · 26 days · 35 km away
- 12,665 haMuanza 13 October 2026 · 11 days · 37 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Muanza fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 30 September 2023 to 14 October 2023 (15 days). The perimeter dates it from 7 October 2023 to 14 October 2023.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,139 hectares (61.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Muanza (6,172 ha, 0.8 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 40.9 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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
History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Start date: 7 October 2023 → 30 September 2023.
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
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 7 October 2023 to 14 October 2023. 294 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.
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.