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Mecubúri fire, July 2026 Mecubúri

Out · last detection 17 Aug 2026, 10:45 UTC

The fire started on 31 July 2026 in Mecubúri, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,376 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 179th largest in Nampula since 2016 (of 392 with a page). Number 263 in Mozambique in 2026, of 532.

The power measured by the satellite is low (19.6 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
4,376ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
17days
31 Jul 2026 – 16 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
31 Jul
2026
Heat detections
110
in a single hotspot: 20 MW
Danger at start
31
High · FWI index
Energy released
723MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

17 Aug 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 31 Jul16 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

312456810111213141517

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
49km/h · peak gust
25%lowest humidity

It had gone 53 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

49% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 740 ha in 2016, 589 ha in 2017, 1,025 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,153 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mecubúri where it started
    4,394 ha reached on 31 Jul
    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)
31 Jul 28.1 °C 34 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
1 Aug 26.1 °C 49 % 45 km/h 0.4 mm High 32
2 Aug 26.3 °C 43 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
3 Aug 27.3 °C 36 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
4 Aug 27.0 °C 37 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
5 Aug 28.0 °C 36 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
6 Aug 29.8 °C 30 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
7 Aug 30.4 °C 35 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
8 Aug 30.0 °C 40 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
9 Aug 29.6 °C 39 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
10 Aug 30.1 °C 39 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
11 Aug 31.3 °C 31 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
12 Aug 31.9 °C 30 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
13 Aug 28.9 °C 40 % 47 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 39
14 Aug 26.7 °C 44 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
15 Aug 26.4 °C 42 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
16 Aug 28.2 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
17 Aug after 28.8 °C 29 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
18 Aug after 29.0 °C 33 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
19 Aug after 29.2 °C 36 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
20 Aug after 29.5 °C 44 % 32 km/h 0.3 mm High 30
21 Aug after 31.2 °C 45 % 37 km/h 0.5 mm High 30
22 Aug after 33.2 °C 25 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
23 Aug after 32.9 °C 25 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
24 Aug after 31.0 °C 30 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
25 Aug after 30.9 °C 35 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
26 Aug after 30.6 °C 37 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
27 Aug after 30.6 °C 35 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
28 Aug after 29.5 °C 38 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
29 Aug after 28.6 °C 41 % 37 km/h 0.4 mm High 34
30 Aug after 29.1 °C 44 % 45 km/h 0.4 mm High 36
31 Aug after 30.6 °C 37 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
1 Sept after 30.6 °C 32 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
2 Sept after 30.8 °C 32 % 37 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 · 24 Jul 2026
After · 23 Aug 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 13 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 29 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 18: 1.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak29 µg/m³
Days over the guideline4 days
PM1031 µg/m³
Optical depth0.56
2930311234567891011121314151617181920212223242526
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 · 110Every 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 Mecubúri fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 31 July 2026 and 16 August 2026: 17 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 4,376 hectares (43.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mecubúri (4,394 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.2 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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

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.