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Sanga fire, 1 October 2022 Sanga

Out · last detection 2 Nov 2022, 22:33 UTC

The fire started on 1 October 2022 in Sanga, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 33 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 11,681 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 47th largest in Niassa since 2016 (of 589 with a page). Number 27 in Mozambique in 2022, of 206.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Sanga · 2019Sanga · 2018Sanga · 2026Sanga · 2025

Burnt area
11,681ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
33days
1 Oct 2022 – 2 Nov 2022
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
1 Oct
2022
Heat detections
523
in a single hotspot: 102 MW
Danger at start
31
High · FWI index
Average daily power
173MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Oct2 Nov
2 Nov 2022

How it evolved, day by day

3 Oct 2022 · 29 MW · 4 6 Oct 2022 · 33 MW · 5 7 Oct 2022 · 209 MW · 13 8 Oct 2022 · 267 MW · 21 9 Oct 2022 · 237 MW · 30 10 Oct 2022 · 741 MW · 58 11 Oct 2022 · 167 MW · 21 12 Oct 2022 · 146 MW · 21 13 Oct 2022 · 184 MW · 20 14 Oct 2022 · 107 MW · 22 15 Oct 2022 · 127 MW · 20 16 Oct 2022 · 16 MW · 7 17 Oct 2022 · 34 MW · 3 18 Oct 2022 · 5 MW · 1 19 Oct 2022 · 265 MW · 20 20 Oct 2022 · 50 MW · 26 21 Oct 2022 · 268 MW · 54 22 Oct 2022 · 606 MW · 57 23 Oct 2022 · 566 MW · 51 24 Oct 2022 · 63 MW · 6 25 Oct 2022 · 9 MW · 3 26 Oct 2022 · 47 MW · 5 27 Oct 2022 · 4 MW · 5 28 Oct 2022 · 178 MW · 18 29 Oct 2022 · 394 MW · 22 31 Oct 2022 · 28 MW · 3 1 Nov 2022 · 14 MW · 3 2 Nov 2022 · 45 MW · 4
3 Oct 9 Oct 10 Oct 13 Oct 17 Oct 21 Oct 25 Oct 29 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
45km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone 39 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

70% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,074 ha in 2016, 1,456 ha in 2017, 4,576 ha in 2018, 1,629 ha in 2019, 2,844 ha in 2020, 1,787 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 8,144 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 7.4% of the area of London (117 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
    11,734 ha reached on 3 Oct
    0.9 %

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)
1 Oct 29.6 °C 31 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
2 Oct 31.0 °C 29 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
3 Oct 31.6 °C 27 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
4 Oct 32.1 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
5 Oct 32.0 °C 24 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
6 Oct 32.2 °C 21 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
7 Oct 31.2 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
8 Oct 31.2 °C 25 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
9 Oct 30.4 °C 26 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
10 Oct 31.3 °C 28 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
11 Oct 30.6 °C 26 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
12 Oct 30.5 °C 24 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 Oct 31.5 °C 25 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
14 Oct 31.6 °C 20 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
15 Oct 31.8 °C 26 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
16 Oct 31.5 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
17 Oct 31.0 °C 28 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
18 Oct 30.4 °C 32 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
19 Oct 31.1 °C 33 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
20 Oct 31.2 °C 27 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
21 Oct 31.7 °C 29 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
22 Oct 32.2 °C 25 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
23 Oct 31.8 °C 31 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
24 Oct 33.8 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
25 Oct 33.6 °C 28 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
26 Oct 33.8 °C 28 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
27 Oct 33.3 °C 22 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
28 Oct 34.2 °C 23 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
29 Oct 34.0 °C 28 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
30 Oct 32.1 °C 33 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
31 Oct 34.7 °C 25 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
1 Nov 33.1 °C 32 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
2 Nov 32.1 °C 32 % 44 km/h 0.7 mm High 35
3 Nov after 33.2 °C 30 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
4 Nov after 32.6 °C 31 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
5 Nov after 33.2 °C 28 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
6 Nov after 32.6 °C 30 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
7 Nov after 32.9 °C 32 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
8 Nov after 33.4 °C 29 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
9 Nov after 34.2 °C 26 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
10 Nov after 32.1 °C 40 % 41 km/h 0.9 mm High 28
11 Nov after 31.4 °C 39 % 35 km/h 0.5 mm High 27
12 Nov after 32.7 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.9 mm High 31

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Sept 2022
After · 9 Nov 2022

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 · Copernicus

On 13 October 2022 the air beside the fire reached 90 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 52: 3.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak90 µg/m³
Days over the guideline20 days
PM10129 µg/m³
Optical depth1.28
29301234567891011121314151617181920212223242526272829303112345
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 523Every 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 1 October 2022 to 2 November 2022 (33 days). The perimeter dates it from 8 October 2022 to 26 October 2022.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 11,681 hectares (116.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Sanga (11,734 ha, 0.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.7 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 26 October 2022 → 2 November 2022.
  2. Start date: 8 October 2022 → 1 October 2022.

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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 8 October 2022 to 26 October 2022. 523 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.