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MZ · Mozambique · –

Sanga fire, 20 September 2019 Sanga

Out · last detection 1 Oct 2019, 10:35 UTC

The fire started on 20 September 2019 in Sanga, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,242 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 498th largest in Niassa since 2016 (of 589 with a page). Number 171 in Mozambique in 2019, of 212.

The power measured by the satellite is low (29.6 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Sanga · 2016Sanga · 2018Sanga · 2018Sanga · 2025

Burnt area
3,242ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
20 Sept 2019 – 1 Oct 2019
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
20 Sept
2019
Heat detections
107
in a single hotspot: 30 MW
Danger at start
33
High · FWI index
Average daily power
58MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Sept1 Oct
1 Oct 2019

How it evolved, day by day

20 Sept 2019 · 30 MW · 6 21 Sept 2019 · 83 MW · 14 22 Sept 2019 · 33 MW · 15 23 Sept 2019 · 112 MW · 21 24 Sept 2019 · 139 MW · 27 25 Sept 2019 · 11 MW · 5 27 Sept 2019 · 31 MW · 11 28 Sept 2019 · 28 MW · 6 1 Oct 2019 · 59 MW · 2
20 Sept 22 Sept 24 Sept 27 Sept 1 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

35°high
41km/h · peak gust
29%lowest humidity

It had gone 47 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.5 mm on 2 Oct.

This area had burned before

55% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 263 ha in 2016, 606 ha in 2017, 996 ha in 2018.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 2% of the area of London (32 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. Sanga where it started
    3,257 ha reached on 20 Sept
    0.3 %

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 area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (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)
20 Sept 31.4 °C 32 % 39 km/h 0.2 mm High 33
21 Sept 31.1 °C 38 % 40 km/h 0.1 mm High 33
22 Sept 31.0 °C 38 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
23 Sept 32.1 °C 32 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
24 Sept 31.8 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
25 Sept 31.0 °C 35 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
26 Sept 28.4 °C 37 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
27 Sept 29.9 °C 32 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
28 Sept 30.0 °C 37 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
29 Sept 33.2 °C 36 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
30 Sept 34.0 °C 34 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
1 Oct 35.4 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
2 Oct after 33.0 °C 38 % 38 km/h 2.5 mm Moderate 17

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Sept 2019
After · 8 Oct 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 · 107Every 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 Sanga fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 20 September 2019 to 1 October 2019 (12 days). The perimeter dates it from 20 September 2019 to 28 September 2019.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,242 hectares (32.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Sanga (3,257 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.4 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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 · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 28 September 2019 → 1 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 20 September 2019 to 28 September 2019. 107 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.