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Maúa fire, 25 August 2026 Maúa, Nipepe

Out · last detection 7 Sept 2026, 10:53 UTC

The fire started on 25 August 2026 in Maúa, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,459 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 421th largest in Niassa since 2016 (of 577 with a page). Number 409 in Mozambique in 2026, of 532.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Marrupa · 2025

Burnt area
3,459ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
15days
25 Aug 2026 – 8 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
25 Aug
2026
Heat detections
55
in a single hotspot: 63 MW
Danger at start
29
High · FWI index
Average daily power
47MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 25 Aug8 Sept
7 Sept 2026

How it evolved, day by day

25 Aug 2026 · 3 MW · 1 28 Aug 2026 · 5 MW · 1 31 Aug 2026 · 8 MW · 1 1 Sept 2026 · 39 MW · 8 2 Sept 2026 · 66 MW · 10 4 Sept 2026 · 91 MW · 19 5 Sept 2026 · 5 MW · 1 6 Sept 2026 · 146 MW · 13 7 Sept 2026 · 63 MW · 1
25 Aug 31 Aug 2 Sept 5 Sept 6 Sept 7 Sept

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

31°high
43km/h · peak gust
27%lowest humidity

It had gone 46 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

5% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1 ha in 2018, 27 ha in 2021, 160 ha in 2025.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 2.2% of the area of London (35 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Maúa where it started
    1,857 ha reached on 25 Aug
    0.2 %
  2. Nipepe
    1,621 ha reached on 28 Aug
    0.3 %

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) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
25 Aug 28.5 °C 42 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
26 Aug 28.2 °C 44 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
27 Aug 27.5 °C 42 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
28 Aug 29.6 °C 32 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
29 Aug 27.2 °C 41 % 34 km/h 0.2 mm High 29
30 Aug 29.2 °C 39 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
31 Aug 30.6 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
1 Sept 30.9 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
2 Sept 30.2 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
3 Sept 30.6 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
4 Sept 31.3 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
5 Sept 28.8 °C 40 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
6 Sept 30.7 °C 36 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
7 Sept 30.7 °C 30 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
8 Sept 27.3 °C 39 % 43 km/h 0.1 mm High 35
9 Sept after 28.1 °C 41 % 33 km/h 0.1 mm High 29
10 Sept after 29.8 °C 40 % 35 km/h 0.3 mm High 30
11 Sept after 31.0 °C 34 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
12 Sept after 30.9 °C 32 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
13 Sept after 31.1 °C 30 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
14 Sept after 30.7 °C 30 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
15 Sept after 32.4 °C 27 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
16 Sept after 30.3 °C 27 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
17 Sept after 30.4 °C 36 % 34 km/h 0.1 mm High 34
18 Sept after 31.2 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 35

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 18 Aug 2026
After · 15 Sept 2026

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 24 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 66 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 35: 2.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak66 µg/m³
Days over the guideline10 days
PM1070 µg/m³
Optical depth1.20
2324252627282930311234567891011
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 · 55Every 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Mozambique ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Maúa fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 25 August 2026 to 8 September 2026 (15 days). The perimeter dates it from 1 September 2026 to 8 September 2026.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,459 hectares (34.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Maúa (1,857 ha, 0.2 %); Nipepe (1,621 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.3 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 35, class 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.

RSS Changes to this page

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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How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 1 September 2026 to 8 September 2026. 55 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.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.