Macossa fire, 11 September 2026 Macossa, Bárue
The fire started on 11 September 2026 in Macossa, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,082 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 50th largest in Manica since 2016 (of 198 with a page). Number 157 in Mozambique in 2026, of 532.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Macossa · 2025Bárue · 2016Macossa · 2017Bárue · 2022
- Burnt area
- 6,082ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 18days
- 11 Sept 2026 – 28 Sept 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 11 Sept
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 183
- in a single hotspot: 115 MW
- Danger at start
- 18
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 165MW
- 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 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.9 mm on 29 Sept.
This area had burned before
100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,494 ha in 2016, 4,140 ha in 2017, 2,690 ha in 2018, 1,535 ha in 2019, 2,297 ha in 2020, 3,129 ha in 2021, 4,363 ha in 2022, 4,341 ha in 2023, 649 ha in 2024, 4,138 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,108 ha that had burned before.
- 3,764 ha Macossa fire, August 2025 30,185 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,763 ha Bárue fire, September 2016 25,445 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,579 ha Macossa fire, September 2017 8,708 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,185 ha Bárue fire, September 2022 7,292 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,090 ha Bárue fire, September 2023 27,713 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,618 ha Macossa fire, August 2023 3,517 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,425 ha Macossa fire, September 2017 4,360 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,023 ha Macossa fire, August 2019 4,252 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
-
Macossa where it started4,786 ha reached on 11 Sept0.5 %
-
1,329 ha reached on 13 Sept0.2 %
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 3.3 hectares of built-up land and about 1,100 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11 Sept | 28.9 °C | 43 % | 21 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 12 Sept | 30.7 °C | 35 % | 23 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 24 |
| 13 Sept | 30.5 °C | 35 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 14 Sept | 30.3 °C | 33 % | 25 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 26 |
| 15 Sept | 31.4 °C | 30 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 16 Sept | 33.2 °C | 22 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 17 Sept | 34.0 °C | 22 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 18 Sept | 31.3 °C | 31 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 19 Sept | 30.3 °C | 31 % | 32 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 36 |
| 20 Sept | 30.3 °C | 32 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 21 Sept | 29.8 °C | 35 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 22 Sept | 30.5 °C | 37 % | 34 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 32 |
| 23 Sept | 29.8 °C | 38 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 24 Sept | 31.3 °C | 33 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 25 Sept | 29.1 °C | 34 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 26 Sept | 31.4 °C | 31 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 27 Sept | 34.5 °C | 25 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 28 Sept | 35.7 °C | 29 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 29 Sept after | 28.8 °C | 60 % | 44 km/h | 4.9 mm | Low 7 |
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 16 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 114 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 74: 4.9 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 · 183Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 30,185 haMacossa29 August 2025 · 25 days · 2 km away
- 27,713 haBárue1 September 2023 · 25 days · 10 km away
- 13,314 haBárue11 September 2026 · 18 days · 13 km away
- 25,445 haBárue5 September 2016 · 18 days · 16 km away
- 12,745 haBárue25 September 2017 · 17 days · 19 km away
- 13,764 haBárue9 September 2022 · 16 days · 21 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Macossa fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 11 September 2026 and 28 September 2026: 18 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 6,082 hectares (60.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Macossa (4,786 ha, 0.5 %); Bárue (1,329 ha, 0.2 %).
- Is the Macossa fire still active?
- No fire detections since 27 Sept 2026, 11:17 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.7 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, 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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 183 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.