How long did the Macossa fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 9 September 2025 and 22 September 2025: 14 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 7,588 hectares (75.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Macossa (7,617 ha, 0.8 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 36.5 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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 · 2025-09-09 → 2025-09-22

Macossa fire, 9 September 2025 Macossa

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

The fire started on 9 September 2025 in Macossa, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,588 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 34th largest in Manica since 2016 (of 198 with a page). Number 71 in Mozambique in 2025, of 313.

Burnt area: 7,588ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 14days; 9 Sept 2025 – 22 Sept 2025
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 9 Sept; 2025
Heat detections: 193; in a single hotspot: 112 MW
Danger at start: 40; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 1.4GW; sum of detected power

Play back 23 Sept 2025

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Sept22 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

91011121314151617181920212223

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

47km/h · peak gust

17%lowest humidity

It had gone 48 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.2 mm on 30 Sept.

This area had burned before

47% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,667 ha in 2017, 206 ha in 2018, 1,101 ha in 2019, 737 ha in 2021, 19 ha in 2022.

What happened to each town

Macossa where it started

7,617 ha reached on 7 Sept

0.8 %

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)
9 Sept	31.4 °C	29 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
10 Sept	30.2 °C	35 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
11 Sept	31.3 °C	27 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
12 Sept	32.0 °C	28 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
13 Sept	30.6 °C	23 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
14 Sept	32.1 °C	18 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
15 Sept	31.0 °C	24 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
16 Sept	34.2 °C	18 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
17 Sept	36.5 °C	17 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
18 Sept	34.0 °C	30 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
19 Sept	32.9 °C	25 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
20 Sept	30.1 °C	34 %	47 km/h	0.2 mm	Very high 44
21 Sept	30.1 °C	32 %	32 km/h	0.5 mm	High 36
22 Sept	32.8 °C	26 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
23 Sept after	36.2 °C	22 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
24 Sept after	34.1 °C	32 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
25 Sept after	32.0 °C	33 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
26 Sept after	27.3 °C	50 %	37 km/h	0.6 mm	High 29
27 Sept after	26.1 °C	55 %	29 km/h	0.9 mm	Moderate 17
28 Sept after	32.5 °C	33 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
29 Sept after	33.7 °C	34 %	36 km/h	0.1 mm	High 37
30 Sept after	24.5 °C	67 %	48 km/h	1.2 mm	Moderate 16

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 2 Sept 2025

After · 29 Sept 2025

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 8 September 2025 the air beside the fire reached 122 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 52: 3.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak122 µg/m³

Days over the guideline16 days

PM10125 µg/m³

Optical depth0.82

WHO 15

78910111213141516171819202122232425

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 · 193Every 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 Macossa fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 9 September 2025 and 22 September 2025: 14 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 7,588 hectares (75.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Macossa (7,617 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 36.5 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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 ↗

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.

Where it burned