Lugela fire, 3 September 2025 Lugela, Milange, Mocuba
The fire started on 3 September 2025 in Lugela, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 64 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 188,911 hectares from heat detections, spread across 4 municipalities.
This page is probably a fire complex, not a single fire. GWIS merges into one perimeter the fires that touch over weeks, which in large burning seasons can join dozens of separate fires. The total area is reliable; the origin and dates refer to the whole complex.
Other fire pages in the same area and on the same dates:
- 72,800 haDerre4 September 2025 · 44 days
- 49,802 haNamarrói4 September 2025 · 26 days
- 8,767 haLugelaOctober 2025 · 23 days
- 7,852 haLugela11 September 2025 · 19 days
- 6,167 haLugela11 September 2025 · 22 days
- 6,072 haMocuba16 September 2025 · 21 days
- 5,434 haNamarróiOctober 2025 · 27 days
- 5,200 haMocuba3 October 2025 · 24 days
It is the 3th largest in Zambézia since 2016 (of 839 with a page). The largest in Mozambique in 2025, of 313.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 188,911ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 64days
- 3 Sept 2025 – 5 Nov 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 4
- districts
- Started on
- 3 Sept
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 11,946
- in a single hotspot: 0 MW
- Danger at start
- 20
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 1.9GW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 15 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 19.8 mm on 11 Nov.
This area had burned before
97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 100,730 ha in 2016, 93,951 ha in 2017, 58,855 ha in 2018, 78,747 ha in 2019, 84,235 ha in 2020, 59,886 ha in 2021, 115,398 ha in 2022, 80,206 ha in 2023, 79,274 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 183,742 ha that had burned before.
- 75,939 ha Lugela fire, September 2022 173,378 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 59,782 ha Milange fire, September 2016 99,267 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 27,652 ha Mocuba fire, September 2017 44,276 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 26,902 ha Lugela fire, September 2019 37,409 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 26,132 ha Lugela fire, October 2017 31,184 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 22,061 ha Lugela fire, September 2024 43,967 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 21,759 ha Lugela fire, October 2020 25,003 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 21,353 ha Milange fire, September 2020 41,830 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Lugela where it started162,026 ha26 %
-
20,558 ha3.7 %
-
7,354 ha0.8 %
-
5 ha0.0 %
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 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 157 hectares of built-up land and about 34,000 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 Sept | 27.7 °C | 35 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 4 Sept | 31.1 °C | 26 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 5 Sept | 29.2 °C | 36 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 6 Sept | 31.5 °C | 26 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 7 Sept | 30.5 °C | 22 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 8 Sept | 30.0 °C | 27 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 9 Sept | 29.3 °C | 38 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 10 Sept | 30.7 °C | 31 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 11 Sept | 30.4 °C | 28 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 12 Sept | 30.6 °C | 23 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 13 Sept | 29.1 °C | 30 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 14 Sept | 29.7 °C | 33 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 15 Sept | 27.2 °C | 53 % | 23 km/h | 1.2 mm | Low 11 |
| 16 Sept | 31.6 °C | 30 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 17 Sept | 32.9 °C | 28 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 18 Sept | 33.1 °C | 27 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 19 Sept | 29.7 °C | 46 % | 39 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 30 |
| 20 Sept | 28.0 °C | 35 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 21 Sept | 28.7 °C | 39 % | 35 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 27 |
| 22 Sept | 31.6 °C | 33 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 23 Sept | 33.3 °C | 28 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 24 Sept | 32.1 °C | 28 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 25 Sept | 31.6 °C | 29 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 26 Sept | 26.2 °C | 54 % | 34 km/h | 2.0 mm | Low 9 |
| 27 Sept | 25.7 °C | 56 % | 32 km/h | 1.7 mm | Low 8 |
| 28 Sept | 31.4 °C | 34 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 29 Sept | 33.9 °C | 28 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 30 Sept | 27.7 °C | 54 % | 32 km/h | 4.5 mm | Low 5 |
| 1 Oct | 23.3 °C | 68 % | 46 km/h | 8.8 mm | Very low 1 |
| 2 Oct | 26.1 °C | 40 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 6 |
| 3 Oct | 26.3 °C | 32 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 4 Oct | 23.7 °C | 61 % | 44 km/h | 3.1 mm | Very low 4 |
| 5 Oct | 24.5 °C | 58 % | 30 km/h | 3.8 mm | Very low 2 |
| 6 Oct | 28.3 °C | 41 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 6 |
| 7 Oct | 30.9 °C | 31 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 8 Oct | 29.0 °C | 47 % | 30 km/h | 1.6 mm | Low 7 |
| 9 Oct | 29.8 °C | 42 % | 31 km/h | 0.3 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 10 Oct | 29.9 °C | 36 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 11 Oct | 30.8 °C | 38 % | 26 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 12 Oct | 31.8 °C | 39 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 13 Oct | 33.7 °C | 27 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 14 Oct | 32.4 °C | 27 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 15 Oct | 33.3 °C | 24 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 16 Oct | 33.7 °C | 18 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 17 Oct | 32.0 °C | 24 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 18 Oct | 28.6 °C | 45 % | 31 km/h | 0.9 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 19 Oct | 33.3 °C | 27 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 20 Oct | 30.7 °C | 37 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 21 Oct | 26.9 °C | 48 % | 34 km/h | 1.7 mm | Low 11 |
| 22 Oct | 25.9 °C | 56 % | 37 km/h | 1.3 mm | Low 9 |
| 23 Oct | 27.9 °C | 37 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 24 Oct | 31.6 °C | 34 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 25 Oct | 34.5 °C | 24 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 26 Oct | 36.0 °C | 25 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 27 Oct | 36.8 °C | 23 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 28 Oct | 35.1 °C | 29 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 29 Oct | 32.9 °C | 34 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 30 Oct | 33.0 °C | 33 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 31 Oct | 31.8 °C | 35 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 1 Nov | 34.0 °C | 33 % | 26 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 30 |
| 2 Nov | 35.9 °C | 31 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 3 Nov | 31.6 °C | 41 % | 34 km/h | 1.6 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 4 Nov | 31.5 °C | 42 % | 32 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 24 |
| 5 Nov | 32.2 °C | 38 % | 36 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 29 |
| 6 Nov after | 30.3 °C | 41 % | 36 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 29 |
| 7 Nov after | 28.2 °C | 43 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 8 Nov after | 26.3 °C | 52 % | 31 km/h | 0.7 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 9 Nov after | 28.6 °C | 39 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 10 Nov after | 29.3 °C | 41 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 11 Nov after | 29.0 °C | 54 % | 23 km/h | 19.8 mm | Very low 2 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 25 September 2025 the air beside the fire reached 104 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 39: 2.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 0Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Lugela fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 September 2025 and 5 November 2025: 64 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 188,911 hectares (1,889.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 4 municipalities: Lugela (162,026 ha, 26 %); Milange (20,558 ha, 3.7 %); Mocuba (7,354 ha, 0.8 %); Molumbo (5 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.8 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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
History of this page · 4 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 11 November 2025 → 5 November 2025.
- Start date: 27 August 2025 → 3 September 2025.
- Last day with fire: 5 November 2025 → 11 November 2025.
- Start date: 3 September 2025 → 27 August 2025.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 15 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. No 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.
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.