How long did the Mecula fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 27 August 2026 to 11 September 2026 (16 days). The perimeter dates it from 28 August 2026 to 7 September 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,528 hectares (35.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Mecula (3,549 ha, 0.2 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 32.0 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, 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.

MZ · Mozambique · 2026-08-27 → 2026-09-11

Mecula fire, 27 August 2026 Mecula

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

The fire started on 27 August 2026 in Mecula, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,528 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 401th largest in Niassa since 2016 (of 567 with a page). Number 391 in Mozambique in 2026, of 525.

The power measured by the satellite is low (23.0 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: 3,528ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 16days; 27 Aug 2026 – 11 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 27 Aug; 2026
Heat detections: 58; in a single hotspot: 23 MW
Danger at start: 30; High · FWI index
Energy released: 361MW; sum of detected power

Play back 7 Sept 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Aug11 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

27283031123467

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

The weather it burned in

32°high

39km/h · peak gust

25%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

88% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 504 ha in 2016, 2,159 ha in 2017, 13 ha in 2018, 2,102 ha in 2021, 671 ha in 2022, 17 ha in 2024, 67 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,103 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Mecula where it started

3,549 ha reached on 27 Aug

0.2 %

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)
27 Aug	28.6 °C	42 %	33 km/h	0.4 mm	High 30
28 Aug	30.4 °C	32 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
29 Aug	30.6 °C	31 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
30 Aug	30.6 °C	37 %	29 km/h	0.1 mm	High 32
31 Aug	31.3 °C	32 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
1 Sept	31.8 °C	27 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
2 Sept	31.2 °C	29 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
3 Sept	31.7 °C	25 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
4 Sept	32.0 °C	32 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
5 Sept	30.6 °C	36 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
6 Sept	31.6 °C	35 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
7 Sept	31.0 °C	33 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
8 Sept	29.4 °C	36 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
9 Sept	28.3 °C	42 %	33 km/h	0.1 mm	High 31
10 Sept	30.6 °C	42 %	34 km/h	0.3 mm	High 29
11 Sept	31.5 °C	38 %	26 km/h	0.1 mm	High 29
12 Sept after	32.6 °C	30 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
13 Sept after	32.0 °C	31 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
14 Sept after	31.5 °C	31 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
15 Sept after	32.7 °C	26 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
16 Sept after	31.3 °C	28 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
17 Sept after	31.7 °C	33 %	34 km/h	0.1 mm	High 37
18 Sept after	32.8 °C	27 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
19 Sept after	32.5 °C	30 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
20 Sept after	32.0 °C	32 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
21 Sept after	33.0 °C	33 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 20 Aug 2026

After · 18 Sept 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 25 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 50 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 29: 2.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak50 µg/m³

Days over the guideline9 days

PM1053 µg/m³

Optical depth0.80

WHO 15

252627282930311234567891011121314

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 · 58Every 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 Mecula fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 27 August 2026 to 11 September 2026 (16 days). The perimeter dates it from 28 August 2026 to 7 September 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,528 hectares (35.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Mecula (3,549 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 32.0 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, 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

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.

Where it burned