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Cuamba fire, September 2025 Cuamba, Metarica

Out · last detection 25 Sept 2025, 10:50 UTC

The fire started on 2 September 2025 in Cuamba, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 23 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,732 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 117th largest in Niassa since 2016 (of 567 with a page). Number 82 in Mozambique in 2025, of 313.

Burnt area
6,732ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
23days
2 Sept 2025 – 24 Sept 2025
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
2 Sept
2025
Heat detections
394
in a single hotspot: 42 MW
Danger at start
33
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

25 Sept 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Sept24 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

23456789111213141516171819202122232425

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

32°high
45km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

10% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 496 ha in 2021, 382 ha in 2022, 53 ha in 2023, 82 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 656 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Cuamba where it started
    6,494 ha reached on 27 Aug
    1.2 %
  2. Metarica
    266 ha reached on 27 Aug
    0.0 %

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)
2 Sept 27.9 °C 32 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
3 Sept 28.1 °C 29 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
4 Sept 30.2 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
5 Sept 30.5 °C 26 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
6 Sept 30.7 °C 22 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
7 Sept 29.6 °C 23 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
8 Sept 30.0 °C 31 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
9 Sept 29.1 °C 40 % 33 km/h 0.2 mm High 30
10 Sept 31.3 °C 30 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
11 Sept 29.8 °C 29 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
12 Sept 30.0 °C 27 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
13 Sept 29.9 °C 27 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
14 Sept 30.2 °C 33 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
15 Sept 27.9 °C 44 % 30 km/h 0.5 mm High 28
16 Sept 30.7 °C 32 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
17 Sept 32.1 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
18 Sept 31.8 °C 32 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
19 Sept 31.3 °C 39 % 37 km/h 0.1 mm High 34
20 Sept 30.8 °C 30 % 36 km/h 0.4 mm High 34
21 Sept 30.2 °C 31 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
22 Sept 30.8 °C 34 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
23 Sept 31.4 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
24 Sept 30.6 °C 31 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
25 Sept after 31.1 °C 31 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
26 Sept after 29.5 °C 32 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
27 Sept after 28.9 °C 36 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
28 Sept after 29.7 °C 35 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
29 Sept after 33.1 °C 30 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
30 Sept after 30.2 °C 45 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
1 Oct after 27.0 °C 49 % 39 km/h 0.4 mm High 30
2 Oct after 28.1 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
3 Oct after 28.7 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
4 Oct after 28.1 °C 29 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 Aug 2025
After · 1 Oct 2025

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 5 September 2025 the air beside the fire reached 80 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 41: 2.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak80 µg/m³
Days over the guideline20 days
PM1081 µg/m³
Optical depth0.89
31123456789101112131415161718192021222324252627
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 · 394Every 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Mozambique ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Cuamba fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 2 September 2025 and 24 September 2025: 23 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 6,732 hectares (67.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Cuamba (6,494 ha, 1.2 %); Metarica (266 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.1 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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.

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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.