How long did the Bárue fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 11 September 2025 to 29 September 2025 (19 days). The perimeter dates it from 12 September 2025 to 24 September 2025.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,262 hectares (32.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Bárue (2,534 ha, 0.4 %); Macossa (739 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 36.5 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 59 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, class Extreme.

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 · 2025-09-11 → 2025-09-29

Bárue fire, 11 September 2025 Bárue, Macossa

Out · last detection 29 Sept 2025, 11:15 UTC

The fire started on 11 September 2025 in Bárue, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,262 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 163th largest in Manica since 2016 (of 198 with a page). Number 268 in Mozambique in 2025, of 313.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Macossa · 2021 Bárue · 2021 Macossa · 2025 Macossa · 2026

Burnt area: 3,262ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 19days; 11 Sept 2025 – 29 Sept 2025
Municipalities hit: 2; districts
Started on: 11 Sept; 2025
Heat detections: 117; in a single hotspot: 75 MW
Danger at start: 42; Very high · FWI index
Average daily power: 91MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Sept29 Sept

Play back 29 Sept 2025

How it evolved, day by day

11 Sept 13 Sept 17 Sept 19 Sept 22 Sept 25 Sept 28 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

36°high

59km/h · peak gust

16%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.9 mm on 4 Oct.

This area had burned before

69% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,032 ha in 2016, 837 ha in 2017, 885 ha in 2018, 665 ha in 2019, 618 ha in 2020, 525 ha in 2021, 400 ha in 2023, 81 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,241 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 2.1% of the area of London (33 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

Bárue where it started

2,534 ha reached on 11 Sept

0.4 %
Macossa

739 ha reached on 12 Sept

0.1 %

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 2025

Built-up area3.5 ha

Residents≈ 800

Inside the perimeter there were about 3.5 hectares of built-up land and about 800 residents (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

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)
12 Sept	31.7 °C	26 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
13 Sept	30.8 °C	21 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
14 Sept	32.1 °C	17 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
15 Sept	31.0 °C	21 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
16 Sept	34.0 °C	17 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
17 Sept	36.5 °C	16 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
18 Sept	33.9 °C	28 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
19 Sept	32.6 °C	25 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
20 Sept	29.5 °C	33 %	59 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
21 Sept	29.4 °C	35 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
22 Sept	33.1 °C	24 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
23 Sept	36.2 °C	20 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
24 Sept	34.4 °C	28 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
25 Sept	31.4 °C	35 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
26 Sept	28.1 °C	44 %	48 km/h	0.1 mm	High 37
27 Sept	26.0 °C	53 %	42 km/h	0.8 mm	High 22
28 Sept	32.9 °C	28 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
29 Sept	34.6 °C	28 %	42 km/h	0.4 mm	Very high 43
30 Sept after	24.7 °C	63 %	60 km/h	0.3 mm	High 31
1 Oct after	24.9 °C	46 %	59 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
2 Oct after	29.3 °C	24 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
3 Oct after	29.7 °C	26 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
4 Oct after	24.7 °C	53 %	51 km/h	1.9 mm	Moderate 15

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 4 Sept 2025

After · 6 Oct 2025

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.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 18 September 2025 the air beside the fire reached 68 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 46: 3.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak68 µg/m³

Days over the guideline15 days

PM1070 µg/m³

Optical depth0.90

WHO 15

101112131415161718192021222324252627

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 · 117Every 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 Bárue fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 11 September 2025 to 29 September 2025 (19 days). The perimeter dates it from 12 September 2025 to 24 September 2025.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,262 hectares (32.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Bárue (2,534 ha, 0.4 %); Macossa (739 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 36.5 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 59 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, class Extreme.
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: 24 September 2025 → 29 September 2025.
26 October 2026 Start date: 12 September 2025 → 11 September 2025.

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?

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 12 September 2025 to 24 September 2025. 117 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 2025, 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.

Where it burned