How long did the Vanduzi fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 27 August 2018 to 17 September 2018 (22 days). The perimeter dates it from 1 September 2018 to 10 September 2018.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,103 hectares (31.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Vanduzi (3,117 ha, 1.0 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 32.8 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 35, 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.

MZ · Mozambique · 2018-08-27 → 2018-09-17

Vanduzi fire, August 2018 Vanduzi

Out · last detection 17 Sept 2018, 10:40 UTC

The fire started on 27 August 2018 in Vanduzi, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 22 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,103 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 180th largest in Manica since 2016 (of 198 with a page). Number 198 in Mozambique in 2018, of 220.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Bárue · 2026 Bárue · 2025 Bárue · 2023 Bárue · 2024

Burnt area: 3,103ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 22days; 27 Aug 2018 – 17 Sept 2018
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 27 Aug; 2018
Heat detections: 122; in a single hotspot: 92 MW
Danger at start: 17; Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power: 89MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Aug17 Sept

Play back 17 Sept 2018

How it evolved, day by day

27 Aug 2 Sept 5 Sept 7 Sept 8 Sept 12 Sept 15 Sept

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

33°high

44km/h · peak gust

23%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

39% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,205 ha in 2017.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 2% of the area of London (31 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

Vanduzi where it started

3,117 ha reached on 27 Aug

1.0 %

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.

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 Sept	26.8 °C	40 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 17
2 Sept	28.2 °C	34 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 21
3 Sept	31.6 °C	33 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
4 Sept	32.1 °C	23 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
5 Sept	32.1 °C	30 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
6 Sept	32.0 °C	39 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
7 Sept	31.9 °C	29 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
8 Sept	32.8 °C	24 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
9 Sept	30.2 °C	33 %	37 km/h	0.6 mm	High 33
10 Sept	24.3 °C	23 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
11 Sept	26.0 °C	37 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
12 Sept	28.5 °C	32 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
13 Sept	31.3 °C	25 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
14 Sept	32.3 °C	27 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
15 Sept	32.9 °C	21 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
16 Sept	32.5 °C	23 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
17 Sept	33.2 °C	22 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
18 Sept after	34.0 °C	23 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
19 Sept after	33.8 °C	24 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
20 Sept after	33.7 °C	28 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 20 Aug 2018

After · 24 Sept 2018

Before After

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 · 122Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Mozambique ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Vanduzi fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 27 August 2018 to 17 September 2018 (22 days). The perimeter dates it from 1 September 2018 to 10 September 2018.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,103 hectares (31.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Vanduzi (3,117 ha, 1.0 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 32.8 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 35, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

26 October 2026 Last day with fire: 10 September 2018 → 17 September 2018.
26 October 2026 Start date: 1 September 2018 → 27 August 2018.

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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What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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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 1 September 2018 to 10 September 2018. 122 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.

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.

Where it burned