Skip to content
worldfires
en
MZ · Mozambique · →

Sanga fire, 11 October 2022 Sanga

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

The fire started on 11 October 2022 in Sanga, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 22 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 15,320 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 30th largest in Niassa since 2016 (of 589 with a page). Number 18 in Mozambique in 2022, of 206.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Sanga · 2017Sanga · 2026Sanga · 2025Sanga · 2026

Burnt area
15,320ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
22days
11 Oct 2022 – 1 Nov 2022
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
11 Oct
2022
Heat detections
620
in a single hotspot: 177 MW
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
225MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Oct1 Nov
2 Nov 2022

How it evolved, day by day

11 Oct 2022 · 4 MW · 1 12 Oct 2022 · 425 MW · 27 14 Oct 2022 · 8 MW · 1 15 Oct 2022 · 7 MW · 2 16 Oct 2022 · 4 MW · 2 17 Oct 2022 · 99 MW · 11 18 Oct 2022 · 36 MW · 5 19 Oct 2022 · 56 MW · 13 20 Oct 2022 · 18 MW · 5 21 Oct 2022 · 142 MW · 38 22 Oct 2022 · 390 MW · 39 23 Oct 2022 · 344 MW · 51 24 Oct 2022 · 1,133 MW · 57 25 Oct 2022 · 171 MW · 50 26 Oct 2022 · 735 MW · 110 27 Oct 2022 · 507 MW · 80 28 Oct 2022 · 572 MW · 81 29 Oct 2022 · 54 MW · 8 30 Oct 2022 · 15 MW · 2 31 Oct 2022 · 102 MW · 17 1 Nov 2022 · 128 MW · 19 2 Nov 2022 · 0 MW · 1
11 Oct 16 Oct 20 Oct 24 Oct 28 Oct 1 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

35°high
48km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

67% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,185 ha in 2016, 4,450 ha in 2017, 630 ha in 2018, 1,682 ha in 2019, 2,122 ha in 2020, 2,697 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 10,219 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 9.7% of the area of London (153 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
    15,403 ha reached on 11 Oct
    1.2 %

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)
11 Oct 31.1 °C 24 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
12 Oct 30.8 °C 23 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
13 Oct 32.1 °C 24 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
14 Oct 31.7 °C 20 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
15 Oct 31.9 °C 24 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
16 Oct 31.6 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
17 Oct 31.3 °C 26 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
18 Oct 31.1 °C 29 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
19 Oct 31.3 °C 31 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
20 Oct 31.3 °C 26 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
21 Oct 32.0 °C 27 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
22 Oct 32.6 °C 23 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
23 Oct 32.1 °C 29 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
24 Oct 33.9 °C 28 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
25 Oct 33.6 °C 28 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
26 Oct 34.2 °C 26 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
27 Oct 33.6 °C 20 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
28 Oct 34.3 °C 23 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
29 Oct 34.0 °C 28 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
30 Oct 32.3 °C 32 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
31 Oct 34.9 °C 25 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
1 Nov 33.3 °C 31 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
2 Nov after 32.6 °C 30 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
3 Nov after 33.3 °C 28 % 43 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 42
4 Nov after 32.9 °C 28 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
5 Nov after 33.2 °C 27 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
6 Nov after 32.7 °C 28 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
7 Nov after 33.0 °C 31 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
8 Nov after 33.3 °C 29 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
9 Nov after 34.0 °C 26 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
10 Nov after 32.1 °C 39 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
11 Nov after 31.3 °C 38 % 38 km/h 0.4 mm High 34

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Oct 2022
After · 8 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 guideline17 days
PM10129 µg/m³
Optical depth1.28
9101112131415161718192021222324252627282930311234
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 · 620Every 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 11 October 2022 to 1 November 2022 (22 days). The perimeter dates it from 17 October 2022 to 29 October 2022.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 15,320 hectares (153.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Sanga (15,403 ha, 1.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.9 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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: 29 October 2022 → 1 November 2022.
  2. Start date: 17 October 2022 → 11 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.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy.

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 17 October 2022 to 29 October 2022. 620 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.