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Macossa fire, 29 August 2025 Bárue, Macossa

Out · last detection 23 Sept 2025, 11:27 UTC

The fire started on 29 August 2025 in Macossa, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 25 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 30,185 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the largest fire in Manica since 2016 (of 198 with a page). Number 14 in Mozambique in 2025, of 313.

Burnt area
30,185ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
25days
29 Aug 2025 – 22 Sept 2025
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
29 Aug
2025
Heat detections
1,346
in a single hotspot: 292 MW
Danger at start
35
High · FWI index
Energy released
21.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

23 Sept 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Aug22 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

2930311234567891011121314151617181920212223

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
44km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 34 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.2 mm on 30 Sept.

This area had burned before

98% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 16,838 ha in 2016, 15,367 ha in 2017, 10,349 ha in 2018, 7,133 ha in 2019, 9,442 ha in 2020, 16,587 ha in 2021, 20,635 ha in 2022, 18,818 ha in 2023, 3,353 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 29,593 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Bárue
    23,498 ha reached on 26 Aug
    4.0 %
  2. Macossa where it started
    6,854 ha reached on 24 Aug
    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)
24 Aug 32.7 °C 17 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
25 Aug 32.2 °C 21 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
26 Aug 32.1 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
27 Aug 30.7 °C 19 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
28 Aug 29.9 °C 21 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
29 Aug 30.8 °C 24 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
30 Aug 31.5 °C 20 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
31 Aug 32.4 °C 19 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
1 Sept 31.4 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
2 Sept 27.1 °C 43 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
3 Sept 30.1 °C 31 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
4 Sept 33.5 °C 18 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
5 Sept 30.6 °C 33 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
6 Sept 33.8 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
7 Sept 30.9 °C 30 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
8 Sept 30.1 °C 31 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
9 Sept 30.8 °C 29 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
10 Sept 29.9 °C 37 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
11 Sept 31.3 °C 27 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
12 Sept 31.6 °C 28 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
13 Sept 30.4 °C 22 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
14 Sept 31.5 °C 19 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
15 Sept 30.4 °C 25 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
16 Sept 33.9 °C 17 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
17 Sept 35.8 °C 20 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
18 Sept 33.1 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
19 Sept 32.4 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 41
20 Sept 29.7 °C 34 % 44 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 41
21 Sept 29.1 °C 37 % 31 km/h 0.3 mm High 32
22 Sept 32.4 °C 27 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
23 Sept after 35.7 °C 23 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
24 Sept after 33.8 °C 33 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
25 Sept after 31.0 °C 38 % 42 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 40
26 Sept after 26.6 °C 52 % 32 km/h 1.3 mm Moderate 16
27 Sept after 25.7 °C 57 % 22 km/h 0.6 mm Moderate 14
28 Sept after 32.5 °C 33 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
29 Sept after 32.7 °C 37 % 31 km/h 0.6 mm High 30
30 Sept after 22.3 °C 69 % 46 km/h 2.2 mm Low 9

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Aug 2025
After · 29 Sept 2025

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 8 September 2025 the air beside the fire reached 188 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 78: 5.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak188 µg/m³
Days over the guideline29 days
PM10192 µg/m³
Optical depth0.86
272829303112345678910111213141516171819202122232425
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 · 1,346Every 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Mozambique ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Macossa fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 29 August 2025 and 22 September 2025: 25 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 30,185 hectares (301.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Bárue (23,498 ha, 4.0 %); Macossa (6,854 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.8 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 44 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

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.