How long did the Marrupa fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 16 October 2026 to 23 October 2026 (8 days). The perimeter dates it from 18 October 2026 to 22 October 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 10,929 hectares (109.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Marrupa (10,969 ha, 0.6 %).

Is the Marrupa fire still active?

Yes: satellites detected fire on 23 Oct 2026, 11:51 UTC. Check the emergency service for the official status.

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 36.4 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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 · 2026-10-16 → 2026-10-23

Marrupa fire, 16 October 2026 Marrupa

Burning · last detection 23 Oct 2026, 11:51 UTC

The fire started on 16 October 2026 in Marrupa, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,929 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 49th largest in Niassa since 2016 (of 567 with a page). Number 79 in Mozambique in 2026, of 525.

Is it still active?

Satellites detected fire on 23 Oct 2026, 11:51 UTC. Everything suggests it is still burning. Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.

Burnt area: 10,929ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 8days; 16 Oct 2026 – 23 Oct 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 16 Oct; 2026
Heat detections: 312; in a single hotspot: 136 MW
Danger at start: 41; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 3.8GW; sum of detected power

Play back 23 Oct 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Oct23 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

1617181920212223

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

46km/h · peak gust

22%lowest humidity

It had gone 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

35% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,112 ha in 2016, 795 ha in 2017, 964 ha in 2018, 1,005 ha in 2019, 15 ha in 2020, 1,649 ha in 2021, 1,308 ha in 2022, 260 ha in 2024, 621 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,813 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Marrupa where it started

10,969 ha reached on 16 Oct

0.6 %

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)
16 Oct	35.2 °C	24 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
17 Oct	35.0 °C	22 %	46 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 49
18 Oct	34.8 °C	27 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
19 Oct	35.0 °C	29 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
20 Oct	36.4 °C	30 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
21 Oct	37.2 °C	28 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 9 Oct 2026

After · 23 Oct 2026

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 19 October 2026 the air beside the fire reached 27 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 16: 1.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak27 µg/m³

Days over the guideline1 day

PM1030 µg/m³

Optical depth0.59

WHO 15

14151617181920

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 · 312Every 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 Marrupa fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 16 October 2026 to 23 October 2026 (8 days). The perimeter dates it from 18 October 2026 to 22 October 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 10,929 hectares (109.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Marrupa (10,969 ha, 0.6 %).
Is the Marrupa fire still active?: Yes: satellites detected fire on 23 Oct 2026, 11:51 UTC. Check the emergency service for the official status.
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 36.4 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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.