How long did the Derre fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 11 September 2026 to 21 September 2026 (11 days). The perimeter dates it from 11 September 2026 to 20 September 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,222 hectares (32.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Derre (3,243 ha, 0.7 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 36.4 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 53 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.

MZ · Mozambique · 2026-09-11 → 2026-09-21

Derre fire, 11 September 2026 Derre

Out · last detection 21 Sept 2026, 11:30 UTC

The fire started on 11 September 2026 in Derre, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,222 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 722th largest in Zambézia since 2016 (of 845 with a page). Number 454 in Mozambique in 2026, of 525.

Burnt area: 3,222ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 11days; 11 Sept 2026 – 21 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 11 Sept; 2026
Heat detections: 53; in a single hotspot: 47 MW
Danger at start: 19; Moderate · FWI index
Energy released: 430MW; sum of detected power

Play back 21 Sept 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Sept21 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

121314151617182021

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

The weather it burned in

36°high

53km/h · peak gust

21%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.4 mm on 29 Sept.

This area had burned before

64% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 89 ha in 2019, 53 ha in 2021, 76 ha in 2022, 540 ha in 2023, 672 ha in 2024, 1,510 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,050 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Derre where it started

3,243 ha reached on 12 Sept

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)
11 Sept	31.7 °C	47 %	29 km/h	0.5 mm	Moderate 19
12 Sept	33.1 °C	34 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
13 Sept	32.5 °C	34 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
14 Sept	32.2 °C	35 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
15 Sept	35.5 °C	23 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
16 Sept	35.4 °C	23 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
17 Sept	36.4 °C	21 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
18 Sept	34.6 °C	22 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
19 Sept	31.7 °C	35 %	35 km/h	0.2 mm	High 37
20 Sept	32.0 °C	33 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
21 Sept	32.5 °C	39 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
22 Sept after	31.2 °C	38 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
23 Sept after	30.0 °C	44 %	31 km/h	0.1 mm	High 29
24 Sept after	31.1 °C	41 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
25 Sept after	31.1 °C	35 %	33 km/h	0.1 mm	High 30
26 Sept after	34.0 °C	31 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
27 Sept after	38.1 °C	20 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
28 Sept after	39.7 °C	23 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
29 Sept after	34.5 °C	31 %	48 km/h	1.4 mm	High 36

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 4 Sept 2026

After · 28 Sept 2026

Before After

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 111 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 51: 3.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak111 µg/m³

Days over the guideline12 days

PM10115 µg/m³

Optical depth1.80

WHO 15

9101112131415161718192021222324

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 · 53Every 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

All fires in Mozambique ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Derre fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 11 September 2026 to 21 September 2026 (11 days). The perimeter dates it from 11 September 2026 to 20 September 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,222 hectares (32.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Derre (3,243 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 36.4 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 53 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

Where it burned