How long did the Gorongosa fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 August 2026 and 10 August 2026: 10 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 3,026 hectares (30.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Gorongosa (1,624 ha, 0.2 %); Macossa (1,422 ha, 0.2 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 31.4 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 30, class 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 · 2026-08-01 → 2026-08-10

Gorongosa fire, 1 August 2026 Gorongosa, Macossa

Out · last detection 10 Aug 2026, 11:15 UTC

The fire started on 1 August 2026 in Gorongosa, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,026 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 211th largest in Sofala since 2016 (of 214 with a page). Number 526 in Mozambique in 2026, of 532.

The power measured by the satellite is low (18.0 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area: 3,026ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 10days; 1 Aug 2026 – 10 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit: 2; districts
Started on: 1 Aug; 2026
Heat detections: 40; in a single hotspot: 18 MW
Danger at start: 23; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 57MW; detected power per day, on average

Play back 10 Aug 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Aug10 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

1 Aug 5 Aug 6 Aug 7 Aug 9 Aug 10 Aug

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

The weather it burned in

31°high

44km/h · peak gust

30%lowest humidity

It had gone 22 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.2 mm on 11 Aug.

This area had burned before

79% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 666 ha in 2017, 979 ha in 2020, 132 ha in 2022, 1,181 ha in 2024, 1,308 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,378 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Gorongosa where it started

1,624 ha reached on 30 Jul

0.2 %
Macossa

1,422 ha reached on 5 Aug

0.2 %

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)
30 Jul	26.9 °C	38 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
31 Jul	24.6 °C	47 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
1 Aug	22.8 °C	48 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
2 Aug	25.3 °C	40 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
3 Aug	26.5 °C	34 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
4 Aug	26.5 °C	30 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
5 Aug	26.6 °C	31 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
6 Aug	26.7 °C	36 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
7 Aug	26.4 °C	37 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
8 Aug	23.9 °C	61 %	24 km/h	0.9 mm	Moderate 14
9 Aug	28.4 °C	40 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
10 Aug	31.4 °C	32 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
11 Aug after	29.3 °C	51 %	40 km/h	1.2 mm	High 23

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 25 Jul 2026

After · 17 Aug 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 6 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 106 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 60: 4.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak106 µg/m³

Days over the guideline12 days

PM10108 µg/m³

Optical depth1.09

WHO 15

2829303112345678910111213

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 · 40Every 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 Gorongosa fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 August 2026 and 10 August 2026: 10 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 3,026 hectares (30.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Gorongosa (1,624 ha, 0.2 %); Macossa (1,422 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 31.4 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 30, class 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