Ribaué fire, September 2023 Ribaué, Gilé
The fire started on 14 September 2023 in Ribaué, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,132 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 137th largest in Nampula since 2016 (of 392 with a page). Number 51 in Mozambique in 2023, of 128.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Ribaué · 2016Ribaué · 2017Ribaué · 2018Ribaué · 2021
- Burnt area
- 5,132ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 9days
- 14 Sept 2023 – 22 Sept 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 14 Sept
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 210
- in a single hotspot: 151 MW
- Danger at start
- 19
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 183MW
- 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 16 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,007 ha in 2016, 2,920 ha in 2017, 2,861 ha in 2018, 2,581 ha in 2019, 1,817 ha in 2020, 2,858 ha in 2021, 2,302 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,160 ha that had burned before.
- 3,006 ha Ribaué fire, September 2016 12,660 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,901 ha Ribaué fire, September 2017 53,154 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,811 ha Ribaué fire, September 2018 12,275 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,955 ha Ribaué fire, September 2021 12,556 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,952 ha Gilé fire, September 2022 90,638 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,770 ha Ribaué fire, August 2019 3,467 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,103 ha Ribaué fire, August 2020 4,491 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
-
Ribaué where it started5,088 ha reached on 7 Sept0.8 %
-
81 ha reached on 12 Sept0.0 %
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 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 3.1 hectares of built-up land and about 450 residents (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14 Sept | 26.3 °C | 50 % | 37 km/h | 0.5 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 15 Sept | 30.4 °C | 30 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 16 Sept | 30.7 °C | 37 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 17 Sept | 32.3 °C | 33 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 18 Sept | 31.6 °C | 29 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 19 Sept | 29.2 °C | 40 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 20 Sept | 30.5 °C | 39 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 21 Sept | 32.1 °C | 30 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 22 Sept | 32.4 °C | 27 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 23 Sept after | 32.7 °C | 26 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 24 Sept after | 31.7 °C | 35 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 25 Sept after | 30.3 °C | 38 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 26 Sept after | 31.8 °C | 30 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 27 Sept after | 27.7 °C | 49 % | 45 km/h | 0.6 mm | High 29 |
| 28 Sept after | 31.0 °C | 33 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 29 Sept after | 31.6 °C | 31 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 30 Sept after | 32.4 °C | 25 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 1 Oct after | 33.7 °C | 30 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 2 Oct after | 32.8 °C | 25 % | 42 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 41 |
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 19 September 2023 the air beside the fire reached 40 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 21: 1.4 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 · 210Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 53,154 haRibaué6 September 2017 · 17 days · 9 km away
- 90,638 haGilé27 September 2022 · 18 days · 17 km away
- 63,932 haRibaué9 September 2016 · 22 days · 18 km away
- 145,344 haRibaué16 August 2026 · 43 days · 21 km away
- 70,839 haGilé8 September 2024 · 14 days · 21 km away
- 32,621 haAlto Molocue29 September 2022 · 13 days · 36 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Ribaué fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 14 September 2023 and 22 September 2023: 9 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,132 hectares (51.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Ribaué (5,088 ha, 0.8 %); Gilé (81 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 32.4 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 32, 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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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 from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 210 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 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.