How long did the Gurué fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 31 August 2026 to 30 September 2026 (31 days). The perimeter dates it from 1 September 2026 to 23 September 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 12,531 hectares (125.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Gurué (7,008 ha, 1.2 %); Ile (5,594 ha, 1.9 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 33.8 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 47 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 · 2026-08-31 → 2026-09-30

Gurué fire, 31 August 2026 Gurué, Ile

Out · last detection 30 Sept 2026, 12:02 UTC

The fire started on 31 August 2026 in Gurué, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 31 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,531 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 127th largest in Zambézia since 2016 (of 839 with a page). Number 71 in Mozambique in 2026, of 547.

The power measured by the satellite is low (20.1 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Gurué · 2016 Ile · 2024 Alto Molocue · 2026 Namarrói · 2018

Burnt area: 12,531ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 31days; 31 Aug 2026 – 30 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit: 2; districts
Started on: 31 Aug; 2026
Heat detections: 218; in a single hotspot: 20 MW
Danger at start: 19; Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power: 46MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 31 Aug30 Sept

Play back 30 Sept 2026

How it evolved, day by day

31 Aug 4 Sept 11 Sept 15 Sept 16 Sept 19 Sept 24 Sept 28 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

34°high

47km/h · peak gust

23%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.2 mm on 1 Oct.

This area had burned before

69% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,462 ha in 2016, 2,935 ha in 2017, 3,095 ha in 2018, 2,524 ha in 2019, 1,236 ha in 2020, 2,735 ha in 2021, 1,167 ha in 2023, 4,471 ha in 2024, 4,048 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 8,673 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 7.9% of the area of London (125 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

Gurué where it started

7,008 ha reached on 31 Aug

1.2 %
Ile

5,594 ha reached on 3 Sept

1.9 %

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.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025

Built-up area100 ha

Residents≈ 8,900

Inside the perimeter there were about 100 hectares of built-up land and about 8,900 residents (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
31 Aug	30.3 °C	26 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
1 Sept	29.2 °C	30 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
2 Sept	29.7 °C	28 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
3 Sept	30.0 °C	29 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
4 Sept	31.1 °C	30 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
5 Sept	29.7 °C	36 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
6 Sept	29.3 °C	35 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
7 Sept	27.4 °C	38 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
8 Sept	22.1 °C	57 %	44 km/h	3.4 mm	Very low 4
9 Sept	23.4 °C	58 %	29 km/h	3.1 mm	Very low 2
10 Sept	26.6 °C	58 %	28 km/h	0.6 mm	Very low 4
11 Sept	28.3 °C	45 %	27 km/h	0.2 mm	Moderate 11
12 Sept	30.2 °C	33 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
13 Sept	29.9 °C	31 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
14 Sept	29.9 °C	30 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
15 Sept	32.1 °C	25 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
16 Sept	30.9 °C	26 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
17 Sept	30.8 °C	29 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
18 Sept	31.2 °C	23 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
19 Sept	28.6 °C	30 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
20 Sept	28.4 °C	34 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
21 Sept	29.2 °C	45 %	30 km/h	0.3 mm	High 23
22 Sept	25.8 °C	53 %	33 km/h	0.2 mm	Moderate 20
23 Sept	27.8 °C	39 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
24 Sept	28.9 °C	37 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
25 Sept	28.3 °C	37 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
26 Sept	30.3 °C	35 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
27 Sept	33.0 °C	28 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
28 Sept	33.8 °C	31 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
29 Sept	29.8 °C	48 %	31 km/h	6.7 mm	Very low 4
30 Sept	25.2 °C	60 %	34 km/h	12.3 mm	Very low 1
1 Oct after	21.0 °C	67 %	31 km/h	4.2 mm	Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 24 Aug 2026

After · 7 Oct 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 3 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 61 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 36: 2.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak61 µg/m³

Days over the guideline23 days

PM1062 µg/m³

Optical depth1.16

WHO 15

293031123456789101112131415161718192021222324252627282930123

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 · 218Every 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 Gurué fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 31 August 2026 to 30 September 2026 (31 days). The perimeter dates it from 1 September 2026 to 23 September 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 12,531 hectares (125.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Gurué (7,008 ha, 1.2 %); Ile (5,594 ha, 1.9 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 33.8 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 47 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 ↗

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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

What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy.

How we know this

Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 1 September 2026 to 23 September 2026. 218 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.
Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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