Changara fire, 7 October 2026 Changara, Cahora Bassa
The fire started on 7 October 2026 in Changara, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 20 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 13,622 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 5th largest in Tete since 2016 (of 115 with a page). Number 61 in Mozambique in 2026, of 539.
Compare with…
Is it still active?
Satellites detected fire on 26 Oct 2026, 12:14 UTC. Everything suggests it is still burning. Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
- Burnt area
- 13,622ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 20days
- 7 Oct 2026 – 26 Oct 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 7 Oct
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 452
- in a single hotspot: 125 MW
- Danger at start
- 18
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 363MW
- 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 one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
19% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 386 ha in 2016, 502 ha in 2019, 451 ha in 2020, 1,656 ha in 2021, 954 ha in 2022, 930 ha in 2023, 857 ha in 2024, 490 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,531 ha that had burned before.
- 1,656 ha Changara fire, October 2021 3,402 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 434 ha Changara fire, October 2020 5,635 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 17 ha Cahora Bassa fire, October 2020 3,165 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
-
Changara where it started8,804 ha reached on 13 Oct1.4 %
-
4,904 ha reached on 13 Oct0.6 %
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.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 0.12 hectares of built-up land and about 20 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) · forecast models, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7 Oct | 34.3 °C | 38 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 8 Oct | 32.6 °C | 46 % | 48 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 22 |
| 9 Oct | 32.6 °C | 44 % | 43 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 22 |
| 10 Oct | 34.2 °C | 29 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 11 Oct | 32.1 °C | 30 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 12 Oct | 32.7 °C | 28 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 13 Oct | 35.1 °C | 27 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 14 Oct | 35.9 °C | 25 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 15 Oct | 35.7 °C | 26 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 16 Oct | 35.2 °C | 25 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 17 Oct | 35.5 °C | 24 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 18 Oct | 36.1 °C | 20 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 19 Oct | 38.3 °C | 15 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 20 Oct | 40.5 °C | 15 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 21 Oct | 39.8 °C | 18 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 22 Oct | 40.5 °C | 19 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 23 Oct | 42.2 °C | 14 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 24 Oct | 36.1 °C | 29 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 25 Oct | 34.1 °C | 34 % | 47 km/h | 0.5 mm | Very high 44 |
| 26 Oct | 36.3 °C | 18 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
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 9 October 2026 the air beside the fire reached 31 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 19: 1.3 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 · 452Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 5,635 haChangara8 October 2020 · 23 days · 4 km away
- 5,347 haChangaraOctober 2025 · 26 days · 16 km away
- 13,125 haChangara 6 October 2026 · 21 days · 19 km away
- 5,907 haChangaraOctober 2023 · 7 days · 19 km away
- 5,349 haChangara29 October 2021 · 19 days · 21 km away
- 5,016 haChangara13 October 2021 · 13 days · 22 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Changara fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 7 October 2026 to 26 October 2026 (20 days). The perimeter dates it from 7 October 2026 to 25 October 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 13,622 hectares (136.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Changara (8,804 ha, 1.4 %); Cahora Bassa (4,904 ha, 0.6 %).
- Is the Changara fire still active?
- Yes: satellites detected fire on 26 Oct 2026, 12:14 UTC. Check the emergency service for the official status.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 42.2 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 63, 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
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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 7 October 2026 to 25 October 2026. 452 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: ECMWF IFS model, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives.
- 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.
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.