Mecula fire, 17 October 2025 Mecula, Marrupa
The fire started on 17 October 2025 in Mecula, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 39,524 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 4th largest in Niassa since 2016 (of 567 with a page). Number 10 in Mozambique in 2025, of 313.
- Burnt area
- 39,524ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 18days
- 17 Oct 2025 – 3 Nov 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 17 Oct
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 891
- in a single hotspot: 216 MW
- Danger at start
- 36
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 9.7GW
- sum of detected power
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 more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 16.3 mm on 7 Nov.
This area had burned before
83% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 7,513 ha in 2016, 4,967 ha in 2017, 11,000 ha in 2018, 12,651 ha in 2019, 3,847 ha in 2020, 9,581 ha in 2021, 7,477 ha in 2022, 2,033 ha in 2023, 1,720 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 32,896 ha that had burned before.
- 5,711 ha Mecula fire, September 2022 10,853 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,782 ha Marrupa fire, September 2021 21,464 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,582 ha Mecula fire, September 2016 5,792 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,238 ha Mecula fire, October 2018 14,868 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,961 ha Mecula fire, September 2020 3,144 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,917 ha Mecula fire, October 2019 4,594 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,796 ha Mecula fire, October 2019 11,534 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,677 ha Mecula fire, October 2016 3,932 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Mecula where it started39,812 ha reached on 17 Oct2.2 %
-
4 ha0.0 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17 Oct | 32.3 °C | 31 % | 32 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 36 |
| 18 Oct | 31.2 °C | 32 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 19 Oct | 32.4 °C | 34 % | 31 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 35 |
| 20 Oct | 31.8 °C | 34 % | 33 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 35 |
| 21 Oct | 31.9 °C | 37 % | 33 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 35 |
| 22 Oct | 33.5 °C | 29 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 23 Oct | 32.7 °C | 31 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 24 Oct | 33.2 °C | 30 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 25 Oct | 34.4 °C | 27 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 26 Oct | 34.5 °C | 34 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 27 Oct | 34.6 °C | 34 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 28 Oct | 34.0 °C | 36 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 29 Oct | 33.4 °C | 33 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 30 Oct | 33.7 °C | 32 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 31 Oct | 33.7 °C | 32 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 1 Nov | 33.9 °C | 33 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 2 Nov | 33.1 °C | 34 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 3 Nov | 33.6 °C | 40 % | 46 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 35 |
| 4 Nov after | 33.5 °C | 41 % | 30 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 32 |
| 5 Nov after | 33.1 °C | 43 % | 27 km/h | 0.6 mm | High 26 |
| 6 Nov after | 31.7 °C | 47 % | 25 km/h | 1.8 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 7 Nov after | 30.0 °C | 58 % | 32 km/h | 16.3 mm | Very low 2 |
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 25 October 2025 the air beside the fire reached 20 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO 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 · 891Every 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 Mecula fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 17 October 2025 and 3 November 2025: 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 39,524 hectares (395.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mecula (39,812 ha, 2.2 %); Marrupa (4 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 34.6 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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.
Report an error
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.