How long did the Ile fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 21 August 2026 to 15 September 2026 (26 days). The perimeter dates it from 27 August 2026 to 8 September 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 11,710 hectares (117.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Ile (10,637 ha, 3.6 %); Mulevala (1,151 ha, 0.4 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 34.2 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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 · 2026-08-21 → 2026-09-15

Ile fire, 21 August 2026 Ile, Mulevala

Out · last detection 16 Sept 2026, 11:23 UTC

The fire started on 21 August 2026 in Ile, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 26 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 11,710 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 140th largest in Zambézia since 2016 (of 842 with a page). Number 73 in Mozambique in 2026, of 532.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Ile · 2026 Mocuba · 2026 Mocubela · 2024 Ile · 2020

Burnt area: 11,710ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 26days; 21 Aug 2026 – 15 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit: 2; districts
Started on: 21 Aug; 2026
Heat detections: 279; in a single hotspot: 114 MW
Danger at start: 20; Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power: 90MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Aug15 Sept

Play back 16 Sept 2026

How it evolved, day by day

21 Aug 25 Aug 31 Aug 1 Sept 3 Sept 6 Sept 11 Sept 14 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

42km/h · peak gust

23%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

29% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 803 ha in 2016, 21 ha in 2019, 633 ha in 2020, 851 ha in 2024, 1,140 ha in 2025.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 7.4% of the area of London (117 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

Ile where it started

10,637 ha reached on 21 Aug

3.6 %
Mulevala

1,151 ha reached on 22 Aug

0.4 %

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.

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)
21 Aug	30.0 °C	44 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
22 Aug	30.7 °C	34 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
23 Aug	32.0 °C	23 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
24 Aug	27.8 °C	40 %	34 km/h	0.3 mm	High 28
25 Aug	28.6 °C	39 %	24 km/h	0.2 mm	High 27
26 Aug	26.5 °C	51 %	32 km/h	0.7 mm	Moderate 19
27 Aug	25.8 °C	45 %	39 km/h	0.7 mm	Moderate 21
28 Aug	27.1 °C	50 %	27 km/h	1.2 mm	Moderate 13
29 Aug	26.5 °C	50 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 15
30 Aug	32.0 °C	30 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
31 Aug	32.5 °C	24 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
1 Sept	31.2 °C	27 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
2 Sept	31.4 °C	29 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
3 Sept	32.7 °C	25 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
4 Sept	33.3 °C	26 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
5 Sept	32.0 °C	31 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
6 Sept	30.9 °C	34 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
7 Sept	29.2 °C	37 %	40 km/h	0.1 mm	High 36
8 Sept	24.4 °C	52 %	42 km/h	2.4 mm	Low 10
9 Sept	25.3 °C	56 %	29 km/h	2.0 mm	Low 7
10 Sept	28.8 °C	51 %	24 km/h	0.6 mm	Moderate 13
11 Sept	30.5 °C	43 %	31 km/h	0.2 mm	High 24
12 Sept	32.0 °C	31 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
13 Sept	31.4 °C	31 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
14 Sept	31.5 °C	30 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
15 Sept	34.2 °C	24 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
16 Sept after	31.7 °C	30 %	57 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
17 Sept after	33.9 °C	24 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
18 Sept after	33.5 °C	21 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
19 Sept after	30.8 °C	31 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
20 Sept after	30.3 °C	33 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
21 Sept after	31.7 °C	39 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
22 Sept after	29.3 °C	48 %	35 km/h	0.2 mm	High 31
23 Sept after	29.5 °C	38 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
24 Sept after	30.8 °C	36 %	36 km/h	0.1 mm	High 33
25 Sept after	30.3 °C	34 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 14 Aug 2026

After · 22 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 4 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 73 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 38: 2.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak73 µg/m³

Days over the guideline13 days

PM1075 µg/m³

Optical depth1.16

WHO 15

19202122232425262728293031123456789101112131415161718

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 · 279Every 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 Ile fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 21 August 2026 to 15 September 2026 (26 days). The perimeter dates it from 27 August 2026 to 8 September 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 11,710 hectares (117.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Ile (10,637 ha, 3.6 %); Mulevala (1,151 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 34.2 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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 ↗

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.

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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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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 27 August 2026 to 8 September 2026. 279 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.

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