Burned area
satellite only4,905ha
Perimeter published by GWIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 3 Sept 2024 – 21 Sept 2024
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
MZ · Mozambique · –
Cuamba fire, September 2024 Metarica, Cuamba
Out · last detection 21 Sept 2024, 22:14 UTC
The fire started on 3 September 2024 in Cuamba, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,905 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 141th largest in Niassa since 2016 (of 374 with a page). Number 64 in Mozambique in 2024, of 150.
Use this data
Compare with…
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-10-26matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only19days
3 Sept 2024 to 21 Sept 2024: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 21 Sept 2024, 22:14 UTC
+− cross-check
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.
Start
satellite only3 Sept 2024
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 3 Sept 2024
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only206
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 104 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 3 Sept 2024 – 21 Sept 2024
+− cross-check
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
The worst day
satellite only752MW
Total radiative power on 10 September 2024; hotspots that day: 45.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 10 Sept 2024
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model30.2FWI · high
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 4.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 3 Sept 2024, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model32.7°C · 28% RH
High of 32.7 °C and minimum humidity of 28% on 13 September 2024; gusts of 43 km/h on 7 September 2024.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 3 Sept 2024 – 21 Sept 2024
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
logLast day with fire: 16 September 2024 → 21 September 2024.
-
logStart date: 8 September 2024 → 3 September 2024.
What was saved on 26 October 2026
Every night a snapshot of what the page shows is saved. If anything changes, it appears in the list as a log entry.
- Area
- 4,905 ha
- Dates
- 3 Sept 2024 – 21 Sept 2024
- Name
- Metarica
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/cuamba-2024-09?v=2026-10-26A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire cuamba-2024-09.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024-09-03 | 1 | 9 | 25.9 | 14.3 | 35 | 18 | 38.5 | 0 | 30.2 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-09-04 | 0 | 0 | 24.5 | 15.2 | 47 | 14 | 32 | 0.4 | 24.5 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-09-05 | 0 | 0 | 26.1 | 18.2 | 36 | 6.8 | 21.2 | 0 | 23.2 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-09-06 | 0 | 0 | 29 | 20 | 34 | 14.5 | 32.4 | 0.1 | 33.4 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-09-07 | 1 | 1 | 28.8 | 20.4 | 36 | 15 | 43.2 | 0 | 35 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-09-08 | 18 | 67 | 31.2 | 19.1 | 33 | 12 | 30.2 | 0 | 34 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-09-09 | 20 | 227 | 32.2 | 19.6 | 30 | 12.9 | 27.4 | 0 | 33.1 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-09-10 | 45 | 752 | 31.5 | 20.5 | 29 | 16.3 | 34.9 | 0 | 44.8 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2024-09-11 | 8 | 155 | 30.8 | 17.6 | 34 | 14.7 | 28.8 | 0 | 36.6 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-09-12 | 25 | 198 | 30.7 | 19.2 | 33 | 13.4 | 31.7 | 0 | 36.5 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-09-13 | 22 | 158 | 32.7 | 18.6 | 28 | 15.6 | 33.8 | 0 | 41.5 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2024-09-14 | 14 | 132 | 32.6 | 20.4 | 25 | 14.9 | 31.7 | 0 | 46.1 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2024-09-15 | 17 | 137 | 32.1 | 20.4 | 29 | 18.4 | 38.2 | 0 | 52.8 | extremo | 1 |
| 2024-09-16 | 7 | 51 | 31.5 | 19.7 | 26 | 14.7 | 33.5 | 0 | 44.6 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2024-09-17 | 0 | 0 | 30.5 | 18.3 | 33 | 14.1 | 33.1 | 0 | 43.8 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2024-09-18 | 9 | 51 | 31.1 | 19.9 | 21 | 14 | 32.4 | 0 | 50.2 | extremo | 1 |
| 2024-09-19 | 8 | 32 | 31.7 | 17.5 | 28 | 14.7 | 33.8 | 0 | 50.8 | extremo | 1 |
| 2024-09-20 | 2 | 26 | 32 | 19.1 | 28 | 15.4 | 32.8 | 0 | 47.3 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2024-09-21 | 9 | 85 | 32.3 | 20.1 | 26 | 15.7 | 34.9 | 0 | 46.2 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2024-09-22 | 0 | 0 | 28.2 | 21.5 | 44 | 15.5 | 32.8 | 0.4 | 36.2 | alto | 0 |
| 2024-09-23 | 0 | 0 | 26.4 | 19.3 | 58 | 19.4 | 44.6 | 1.2 | 22.5 | alto | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: GWIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 4,905ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 19days
- 3 Sept 2024 – 21 Sept 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 3 Sept
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 206
- in a single hotspot: 104 MW
- Danger at start
- 30
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 139MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
3 Sept21 Sept
21 Sept 2024
How it evolved, day by day
3 Sept
10 Sept
15 Sept
19 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
43km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity
It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.2 mm on 23 Sept.
This area had burned before
35% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 733 ha in 2021, 1,113 ha in 2022, 399 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,735 ha that had burned before.
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
-
3,957 ha0.8 %
-
Cuamba where it started977 ha0.2 %
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 Sept | 25.9 °C | 35 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 4 Sept | 24.5 °C | 47 % | 32 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 24 |
| 5 Sept | 26.1 °C | 36 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 6 Sept | 29.0 °C | 34 % | 32 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 33 |
| 7 Sept | 28.8 °C | 36 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 8 Sept | 31.2 °C | 33 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 9 Sept | 32.2 °C | 30 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 10 Sept | 31.5 °C | 29 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 11 Sept | 30.8 °C | 34 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 12 Sept | 30.7 °C | 33 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 13 Sept | 32.7 °C | 28 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 14 Sept | 32.6 °C | 25 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 15 Sept | 32.1 °C | 29 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 16 Sept | 31.5 °C | 26 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 17 Sept | 30.5 °C | 33 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 18 Sept | 31.1 °C | 21 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 19 Sept | 31.7 °C | 28 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 20 Sept | 32.0 °C | 28 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 21 Sept | 32.3 °C | 26 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 22 Sept after | 28.2 °C | 44 % | 33 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 36 |
| 23 Sept after | 26.4 °C | 58 % | 45 km/h | 1.2 mm | High 22 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 30.2, a minimum humidity of 35% and 4 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 24.
FWI at the start
30.2
Minimum humidity
35 %
Days without rain
4
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Cuamba fire, September 2024
4,905 ha
19 days
FWI 30.2
Min. humidity 35 %
Lugela fire, October 2017
14,441 ha
25 days
FWI 31.7
Min. humidity 35 %
180 km away, in 2017
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 10.0 mm on 29 Oct.
Gurué fire, September 2020
3,277 ha
19 days
FWI 32.4
Min. humidity 35 %
140 km away, in 2020
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Mocuba fire, September 2021
4,532 ha
16 days
FWI 29.5
Min. humidity 35 %
248 km away, in 2021
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Mecubúri fire, August 2016
7,189 ha
14 days
FWI 29.4
Min. humidity 36 %
249 km away, in 2016
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Ribaué fire, August 2020
4,491 ha
6 days
FWI 30.9
Min. humidity 33 %
194 km away, in 2020
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.2 mm on 2 Sept.
What happened to them
- 14 days
- median duration
- 4,503 ha
- median area
- 17 %
- went past 10,000 ha
- 2.3 mm
- rain at the end (median; 18 of 24 had it)
It burned an area similar to its twins (4,905 ha against a median of 4,503 ha) and lasted 19 days, against 14 days.
In 6 of 24, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.3 mm.
This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it
How it ended
1.2 mmfirst rain
23 Sept2 days after it ended
43km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 21 Sept, and on 23 Sept 1.2 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 18 of 24, with a median of 2.3 mm.
Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)
How a twin is chosen
- Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
- Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
- Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
- Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
- They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 27 Aug 2024
After · 28 Sept 2024
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
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 12 September 2024 the air beside the fire reached 30 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 22: 1.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
PM2.5 peak30 µg/m³
Days over the guideline2 days
PM1044 µg/m³
Optical depth0.66
WHO 15
6 Sept9 Sept12 Sept15 Sept18 Sept
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 · 206Every 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
- 6,654 haMetarica2 September 2025 · 29 days · 5 km away
- 6,732 haCuambaSeptember 2025 · 23 days · 18 km away
- 59,224 haCuamba22 August 2026 · 40 days · 21 km away
- 7,868 haMetarica21 August 2026 · 26 days · 25 km away
- 5,323 haMetarica24 August 2026 · 22 days · 38 km away
- 3,456 haCuamba30 August 2026 · 8 days · 39 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Cuamba fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 3 September 2024 to 21 September 2024 (19 days). The perimeter dates it from 8 September 2024 to 16 September 2024.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 4,905 hectares (49.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Metarica (3,957 ha, 0.8 %); Cuamba (977 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 32.7 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, 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.
- How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
- Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 24. Their median duration was 14 days and their median area 4,503 ha; 17 % went past 10,000 ha. In 6 of 24, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.3 mm.
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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 16 September 2024 → 21 September 2024.
- Start date: 8 September 2024 → 3 September 2024.
RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version
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.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 8 September 2024 to 16 September 2024. 206 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.