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Cuamba fire, 29 August 2026 Cuamba, Metarica, Mandimba

Out · last detection 25 Sept 2026, 23:03 UTC

The fire started on 29 August 2026 in Cuamba, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 27 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 61,192 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the largest fire in Niassa since 2016 (of 577 with a page). Number 16 in Mozambique in 2026, of 532.

Burnt area
61,192ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
27days
29 Aug 2026 – 24 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit
3
districts
Started on
29 Aug
2026
Heat detections
3,022
in a single hotspot: 127 MW
Danger at start
24
High · FWI index
Energy released
23.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

25 Sept 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Aug24 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

29303112345678101112131415161718192021222425

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
44km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.4 mm on 29 Sept.

This area had burned before

64% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,042 ha in 2016, 510 ha in 2017, 750 ha in 2018, 931 ha in 2019, 1,264 ha in 2020, 2,768 ha in 2021, 4,904 ha in 2022, 5,599 ha in 2023, 7,374 ha in 2024, 28,717 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 38,984 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Cuamba where it started
    36,624 ha reached on 22 Aug
    6.8 %
  2. Metarica
    21,394 ha reached on 22 Aug
    4.4 %
  3. Mandimba
    3,481 ha reached on 24 Aug
    0.7 %

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)
29 Aug 26.2 °C 40 % 33 km/h 0.6 mm High 24
30 Aug 29.7 °C 32 % 31 km/h 0.1 mm High 29
31 Aug 30.0 °C 31 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
1 Sept 29.8 °C 29 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
2 Sept 29.6 °C 28 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
3 Sept 29.8 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
4 Sept 30.8 °C 31 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
5 Sept 29.6 °C 37 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
6 Sept 29.1 °C 37 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
7 Sept 29.6 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
8 Sept 24.8 °C 46 % 44 km/h 0.1 mm High 33
9 Sept 25.6 °C 42 % 38 km/h 0.1 mm High 32
10 Sept 28.4 °C 43 % 33 km/h 0.2 mm High 27
11 Sept 28.4 °C 44 % 26 km/h 0.2 mm High 25
12 Sept 29.3 °C 36 % 26 km/h 0.2 mm High 28
13 Sept 30.0 °C 34 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
14 Sept 29.9 °C 29 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
15 Sept 31.7 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
16 Sept 30.4 °C 23 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
17 Sept 29.9 °C 36 % 32 km/h 0.2 mm High 34
18 Sept 30.5 °C 29 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
19 Sept 29.5 °C 30 % 31 km/h 0.3 mm High 36
20 Sept 29.0 °C 41 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
21 Sept 29.5 °C 44 % 30 km/h 0.2 mm High 30
22 Sept 27.9 °C 47 % 30 km/h 8.2 mm Low 5
23 Sept 28.5 °C 50 % 26 km/h 1.8 mm Low 6
24 Sept 30.1 °C 36 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
25 Sept after 28.7 °C 39 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
26 Sept after 28.7 °C 44 % 37 km/h 0.4 mm High 26
27 Sept after 32.3 °C 36 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
28 Sept after 33.0 °C 38 % 38 km/h 0.3 mm High 29
29 Sept after 30.8 °C 44 % 35 km/h 2.4 mm Moderate 11

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Aug 2026
After · 1 Oct 2026

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 16 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 61 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 35: 2.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak61 µg/m³
Days over the guideline33 days
PM1062 µg/m³
Optical depth1.07
202122232425262728293031123456789101112131415161718192021222324252627282930123
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 · 3,022Every 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 29 August 2026 and 24 September 2026: 27 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 61,192 hectares (611.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Cuamba (36,624 ha, 6.8 %); Metarica (21,394 ha, 4.4 %); Mandimba (3,481 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.7 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 44 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.