Balama fire, 30 July 2026 Balama, Namuno
The fire started on 30 July 2026 in Balama, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 47 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 46,372 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
This page is probably a fire complex, not a single fire. GWIS merges into one perimeter the fires that touch over weeks, which in large burning seasons can join dozens of separate fires. The total area is reliable; the origin and dates refer to the whole complex.
Other fire pages in the same area and on the same dates:
- 13,824 haNamuno5 August 2026 · 32 days
- 7,982 haBalama15 August 2026 · 24 days
- 5,516 haBalama10 August 2026 · 24 days
- 4,596 haMontepuez16 August 2026 · 30 days
- 4,127 haBalama15 August 2026 · 20 days
- 3,870 haBalama31 August 2026 · 8 days
- 3,854 haBalama20 July 2026 · 13 days
- 3,656 haNamuno6 August 2026 · 21 days
It is the largest fire in Cabo Delgado since 2016 (of 121 with a page). Number 21 in Mozambique in 2026, of 539.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Balama · 2017Balama · 2025Balama · 2018Balama · 2016
- Burnt area
- 46,372ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 47days
- 30 Jul 2026 – 14 Sept 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 30 Jul
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 1,622
- in a single hotspot: 122 MW
- Danger at start
- 26
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 403MW
- 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 56 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
79% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 13,316 ha in 2016, 6,826 ha in 2017, 7,430 ha in 2018, 11,038 ha in 2019, 924 ha in 2020, 5,453 ha in 2021, 4,270 ha in 2022, 8,726 ha in 2023, 12,709 ha in 2024, 12,598 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 36,526 ha that had burned before.
- 3,843 ha Balama fire, August 2017 6,147 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,637 ha Balama fire, August 2025 4,912 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,296 ha Balama fire, August 2018 3,825 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,814 ha Balama fire, August 2016 3,674 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,664 ha Balama fire, July 2023 4,565 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,501 ha Balama fire, August 2024 3,709 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,487 ha Balama fire, August 2022 3,455 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,225 ha Balama fire, August 2019 3,168 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
-
Balama where it started46,643 ha reached on 30 Jul8.4 %
-
3 ha reached on 7 Aug0.0 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 Aug | 24.8 °C | 42 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 4 Aug | 24.8 °C | 44 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 5 Aug | 25.6 °C | 41 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 6 Aug | 27.1 °C | 42 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 7 Aug | 28.6 °C | 36 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 8 Aug | 28.0 °C | 40 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 9 Aug | 27.9 °C | 37 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 10 Aug | 28.4 °C | 39 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 11 Aug | 29.2 °C | 33 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 12 Aug | 29.6 °C | 34 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 13 Aug | 25.9 °C | 45 % | 46 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 35 |
| 14 Aug | 24.7 °C | 48 % | 52 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 35 |
| 15 Aug | 24.0 °C | 43 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 16 Aug | 25.9 °C | 37 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 17 Aug | 26.4 °C | 35 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 18 Aug | 26.5 °C | 38 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 19 Aug | 27.2 °C | 36 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 20 Aug | 27.3 °C | 44 % | 31 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 28 |
| 21 Aug | 29.6 °C | 45 % | 40 km/h | 0.8 mm | High 22 |
| 22 Aug | 31.0 °C | 29 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 23 Aug | 31.1 °C | 26 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 24 Aug | 28.9 °C | 33 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 25 Aug | 29.4 °C | 37 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 26 Aug | 28.2 °C | 42 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 27 Aug | 28.5 °C | 37 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 28 Aug | 29.4 °C | 32 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 29 Aug | 27.4 °C | 40 % | 36 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 33 |
| 30 Aug | 29.3 °C | 40 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 31 Aug | 29.3 °C | 34 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 1 Sept | 29.9 °C | 29 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 2 Sept | 29.4 °C | 32 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 3 Sept | 28.6 °C | 34 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 4 Sept | 30.2 °C | 34 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 5 Sept | 28.7 °C | 39 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 6 Sept | 30.5 °C | 33 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 7 Sept | 30.0 °C | 32 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 8 Sept | 27.4 °C | 38 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 9 Sept | 27.8 °C | 45 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 10 Sept | 28.7 °C | 42 % | 41 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 34 |
| 11 Sept | 30.5 °C | 36 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 12 Sept | 30.9 °C | 32 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 13 Sept | 30.6 °C | 32 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 14 Sept | 29.8 °C | 30 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 15 Sept after | 31.0 °C | 29 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 16 Sept after | 27.9 °C | 39 % | 35 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 34 |
| 17 Sept after | 29.3 °C | 45 % | 31 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 32 |
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 24 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 78 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 36: 2.4 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 · 1,622Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 7,152 haBalama9 August 2016 · 14 days · 19 km away
- 7,969 haBalama20 July 2023 · 19 days · 22 km away
- 6,147 haBalama15 August 2017 · 23 days · 24 km away
- 7,983 haBalama4 August 2019 · 14 days · 27 km away
- 7,982 haBalama15 August 2026 · 24 days · 38 km away
- 13,824 haNamuno5 August 2026 · 32 days · 39 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Balama fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 30 July 2026 to 14 September 2026 (47 days). The perimeter dates it from 3 August 2026 to 7 September 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 46,372 hectares (463.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Balama (46,643 ha, 8.4 %); Namuno (3 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 31.1 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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; 5 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 3 August 2026 to 7 September 2026. 1,622 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.