Tsangano fire, September 2022 Tsangano
The fire started on 27 September 2022 in Tsangano, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 21 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,983 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 7th largest in Tete since 2016 (of 115 with a page). Number 24 in Mozambique in 2022, of 206.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 12,983ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 21days
- 27 Sept 2022 – 17 Oct 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 27 Sept
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 773
- in a single hotspot: 66 MW
- Danger at start
- 36
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 425MW
- 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 26 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
75% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 6,325 ha in 2016, 5,972 ha in 2017, 3,999 ha in 2018, 2,252 ha in 2019, 4,144 ha in 2020, 3,073 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 9,721 ha that had burned before.
- 3,611 ha Tsangano fire, October 2017 5,557 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,351 ha Tsangano fire, September 2016 4,324 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,745 ha Tsangano fire, September 2018 5,653 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,489 ha Tsangano fire, September 2021 3,590 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,642 ha Tsangano fire, September 2020 3,250 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,526 ha Tsangano fire, September 2017 3,618 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,511 ha Tsangano fire, September 2016 3,814 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
-
Tsangano where it started13,072 ha reached on 27 Sept3.6 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 27 Sept | 31.2 °C | 30 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 28 Sept | 30.0 °C | 34 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 29 Sept | 29.3 °C | 31 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 30 Sept | 30.1 °C | 31 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 1 Oct | 30.9 °C | 26 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 2 Oct | 31.6 °C | 24 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 3 Oct | 32.7 °C | 27 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 4 Oct | 33.8 °C | 21 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 5 Oct | 33.4 °C | 17 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 6 Oct | 33.1 °C | 19 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 7 Oct | 33.2 °C | 21 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 8 Oct | 31.2 °C | 26 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 9 Oct | 30.6 °C | 26 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 10 Oct | 32.5 °C | 24 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 11 Oct | 31.0 °C | 26 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 12 Oct | 31.1 °C | 23 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 13 Oct | 32.2 °C | 26 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 14 Oct | 33.2 °C | 19 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 15 Oct | 33.2 °C | 20 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 16 Oct | 31.5 °C | 24 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 17 Oct | 32.1 °C | 25 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 18 Oct after | 31.5 °C | 31 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 19 Oct after | 29.9 °C | 36 % | 34 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 35 |
| 20 Oct after | 30.9 °C | 33 % | 38 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 36 |
| 21 Oct after | 31.8 °C | 26 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 22 Oct after | 33.1 °C | 28 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 23 Oct after | 33.7 °C | 25 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 24 Oct after | 33.8 °C | 25 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 25 Oct after | 33.0 °C | 31 % | 29 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 37 |
| 26 Oct after | 34.1 °C | 26 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 27 Oct after | 34.9 °C | 21 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
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 6 October 2022 the air beside the fire reached 84 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 42: 2.8 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 · 773Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 12,910 haMoatize8 September 2016 · 29 days · 25 km away
- 9,645 haMoatizeSeptember 2018 · 24 days · 29 km away
- 11,621 haChiuta24 August 2026 · 18 days · 32 km away
- 7,882 haMoatize13 September 2021 · 12 days · 33 km away
- 7,265 haChiutaSeptember 2025 · 30 days · 33 km away
- 17,344 haMoatizeAugust 2016 · 21 days · 36 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Tsangano fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 27 September 2022 to 17 October 2022 (21 days). The perimeter dates it from 1 October 2022 to 12 October 2022.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 12,983 hectares (129.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Tsangano (13,072 ha, 3.6 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 33.8 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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.
- Last day with fire: 12 October 2022 → 17 October 2022.
- Start date: 1 October 2022 → 27 September 2022.
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 1 October 2022 to 12 October 2022. 773 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.