Cahora Bassa fire, 13 October 2026 Magoé
The fire started on 13 October 2026 in Cahora Bassa, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 15,730 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 3th largest in Tete since 2016 (of 116 with a page). Number 52 in Mozambique in 2026, of 547.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Magoé · 2017Magoé · 2021Magoé · 2022Magoé · 2022
- Burnt area
- 15,730ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 16days
- 13 Oct 2026 – 28 Oct 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 13 Oct
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 277
- in a single hotspot: 74 MW
- Danger at start
- 33
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 175MW
- 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 10 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
12% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,155 ha in 2018, 1,211 ha in 2021, 807 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,889 ha that had burned before.
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
-
15,817 ha reached on 14 Oct1.8 %
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.
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) · forecast models, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13 Oct | 35.9 °C | 24 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 14 Oct | 36.9 °C | 21 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 15 Oct | 36.7 °C | 21 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 16 Oct | 34.9 °C | 24 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 17 Oct | 36.2 °C | 21 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 18 Oct | 36.1 °C | 20 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 19 Oct | 37.6 °C | 18 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 20 Oct | 40.7 °C | 13 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 21 Oct | 39.8 °C | 17 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 22 Oct | 40.5 °C | 17 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 23 Oct | 42.4 °C | 14 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 67 |
| 24 Oct | 36.4 °C | 26 % | 57 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 25 Oct | 34.3 °C | 31 % | 49 km/h | 0.6 mm | Very high 44 |
| 26 Oct | 36.8 °C | 19 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 27 Oct | 38.7 °C | 19 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 28 Oct | 39.5 °C | 17 % | 55 km/h | 0.2 mm | Extreme 68 |
| 29 Oct after | 34.0 °C | 38 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 30 Oct after | 32.0 °C | 28 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
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 22 October 2026 the air beside the fire reached 59 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 38: 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 · 277Every 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 Cahora Bassa fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 13 October 2026 to 28 October 2026 (16 days). The perimeter dates it from 17 October 2026 to 28 October 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 15,730 hectares (157.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Magoé (15,817 ha, 1.8 %).
- Is the Cahora Bassa fire still active?
- No fire detections since 28 Oct 2026, 11:57 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 42.4 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 57 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 68, 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
History of this page · 4 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Name: Magoé → Cahora Bassa.
- Name: Cahora Bassa → Magoé.
- Name: Magoé → Cahora Bassa.
- Area: 14,814 → 15,476 ha.
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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 17 October 2026 to 28 October 2026. 277 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: ECMWF IFS model, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives.
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.