Chiuta fire, September 2025 Chiuta
The fire started on 11 September 2025 in Chiuta, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,265 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 17th largest in Tete since 2016 (of 114 with a page). Number 75 in Mozambique in 2025, of 313.
- Burnt area
- 7,265ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 18days
- 11 Sept 2025 – 28 Sept 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 11 Sept
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 219
- in a single hotspot: 71 MW
- Danger at start
- 34
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 1.9GW
- sum of detected power
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 39 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.4 mm on 30 Sept.
This area had burned before
96% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,623 ha in 2016, 4,704 ha in 2017, 3,018 ha in 2018, 1,382 ha in 2019, 1,100 ha in 2020, 3,254 ha in 2021, 1,741 ha in 2022, 725 ha in 2023, 2,695 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,980 ha that had burned before.
- 3,254 ha Chiuta fire, September 2021 3,893 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,018 ha Chiuta fire, August 2018 8,906 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,900 ha Chiuta fire, July 2024 4,189 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Chiuta where it started7,302 ha reached on 6 Sept1.0 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11 Sept | 32.3 °C | 29 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 12 Sept | 32.4 °C | 24 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 13 Sept | 31.0 °C | 33 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 14 Sept | 32.0 °C | 27 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 15 Sept | 31.2 °C | 31 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 16 Sept | 34.0 °C | 22 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 17 Sept | 35.9 °C | 17 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 18 Sept | 34.2 °C | 24 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 19 Sept | 33.4 °C | 33 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 20 Sept | 28.8 °C | 36 % | 44 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 38 |
| 21 Sept | 29.5 °C | 38 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 22 Sept | 33.1 °C | 32 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 23 Sept | 34.8 °C | 24 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 24 Sept | 34.2 °C | 25 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 25 Sept | 33.5 °C | 27 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 26 Sept | 30.1 °C | 34 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 27 Sept | 31.0 °C | 36 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 28 Sept | 35.1 °C | 23 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 29 Sept after | 36.3 °C | 24 % | 32 km/h | 0.2 mm | Very high 39 |
| 30 Sept after | 29.5 °C | 52 % | 44 km/h | 1.4 mm | Moderate 20 |
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 30 September 2025 the air beside the fire reached 50 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 28: 1.8 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 · 219Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 11,621 haChiuta24 August 2026 · 18 days · 1 km away
- 8,906 haChiutaAugust 2018 · 12 days · 4 km away
- 8,324 haMoatize9 September 2017 · 10 days · 23 km away
- 17,344 haMoatize5 September 2016 · 7 days · 27 km away
- 12,983 haTsanganoOctober 2022 · 12 days · 33 km away
- 12,910 haMoatize15 September 2016 · 15 days · 38 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Chiuta fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 11 September 2025 and 28 September 2025: 18 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 7,265 hectares (72.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Chiuta (7,302 ha, 1.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.9 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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
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
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.