Macossa fire, 30 August 2025 Macossa
The fire started on 30 August 2025 in Macossa, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 25 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,430 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 28th largest in Manica since 2016 (of 198 with a page). Number 61 in Mozambique in 2025, of 313.
- Burnt area
- 8,430ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 25days
- 30 Aug 2025 – 23 Sept 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 30 Aug
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 344
- in a single hotspot: 232 MW
- Danger at start
- 41
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 5.2GW
- sum of detected power
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 32 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.2 mm on 27 Sept.
This area had burned before
96% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,466 ha in 2016, 2,964 ha in 2017, 1,444 ha in 2018, 1,513 ha in 2019, 1,571 ha in 2020, 1,747 ha in 2021, 1,347 ha in 2022, 1,606 ha in 2023, 2,556 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 8,118 ha that had burned before.
- 376 ha Macossa fire, September 2016 8,469 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 246 ha Macossa fire, September 2021 5,584 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 44 ha Macossa fire, August 2024 4,919 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Macossa where it started8,461 ha reached on 23 Aug0.9 %
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 Aug | 31.3 °C | 19 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 31 Aug | 32.4 °C | 17 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 1 Sept | 31.2 °C | 18 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 2 Sept | 26.9 °C | 40 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 3 Sept | 29.9 °C | 28 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 4 Sept | 33.3 °C | 16 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 5 Sept | 30.3 °C | 30 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 6 Sept | 33.4 °C | 18 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 7 Sept | 30.5 °C | 30 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 8 Sept | 29.9 °C | 30 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 9 Sept | 30.6 °C | 29 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 10 Sept | 29.4 °C | 36 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 11 Sept | 30.7 °C | 26 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 12 Sept | 31.1 °C | 28 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 13 Sept | 30.0 °C | 22 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 14 Sept | 31.2 °C | 18 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 15 Sept | 30.1 °C | 23 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 16 Sept | 33.6 °C | 17 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 17 Sept | 35.7 °C | 18 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 18 Sept | 33.0 °C | 31 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 19 Sept | 32.0 °C | 25 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 20 Sept | 29.2 °C | 33 % | 48 km/h | 0.3 mm | Very high 44 |
| 21 Sept | 28.8 °C | 35 % | 34 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 35 |
| 22 Sept | 32.4 °C | 26 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 23 Sept | 35.4 °C | 22 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 24 Sept after | 33.6 °C | 31 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 25 Sept after | 31.1 °C | 35 % | 44 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 44 |
| 26 Sept after | 26.3 °C | 51 % | 37 km/h | 0.8 mm | High 23 |
| 27 Sept after | 25.2 °C | 56 % | 28 km/h | 1.2 mm | Moderate 12 |
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 29 August 2025 the air beside the fire reached 129 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 68: 4.5 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 · 344Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 28,721 haMacossa11 September 2026 · 18 days · 8 km away
- 8,469 haMacossaSeptember 2016 · 9 days · 9 km away
- 30,185 haMacossa29 August 2025 · 25 days · 33 km away
- 27,713 haBárue1 September 2023 · 25 days · 33 km away
- 12,745 haBárue25 September 2017 · 17 days · 33 km away
- 12,021 haBárue30 September 2017 · 18 days · 36 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Macossa fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 30 August 2025 and 23 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 8,430 hectares (84.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Macossa (8,461 ha, 0.9 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.7 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, class Extreme.
- 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.
Report an error
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.