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Mecula fire, 16 August 2026 Mecula

Out · last detection 14 Sept 2026, 12:02 UTC

The fire started on 16 August 2026 in Mecula, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 30 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 18,777 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 15th largest in Niassa since 2016 (of 577 with a page). Number 40 in Mozambique in 2026, of 532.

Burnt area
18,777ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
30days
16 Aug 2026 – 14 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
16 Aug
2026
Heat detections
567
in a single hotspot: 128 MW
Danger at start
27
High · FWI index
Energy released
4.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

14 Sept 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Aug14 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

1619202122232425262729303112345671011121314

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
40km/h · peak gust
26%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

86% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,917 ha in 2016, 705 ha in 2017, 7,248 ha in 2018, 2,212 ha in 2019, 8,076 ha in 2020, 1,928 ha in 2021, 1,153 ha in 2022, 1,804 ha in 2023, 2,526 ha in 2024, 1,649 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 16,220 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mecula where it started
    18,877 ha reached on 16 Aug
    1.0 %

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)
16 Aug 27.9 °C 35 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
17 Aug 28.2 °C 36 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
18 Aug 28.7 °C 36 % 26 km/h 0.1 mm High 26
19 Aug 27.8 °C 41 % 30 km/h 0.3 mm High 30
20 Aug 30.3 °C 33 % 26 km/h 0.1 mm High 28
21 Aug 30.6 °C 42 % 30 km/h 0.2 mm High 29
22 Aug 31.6 °C 39 % 30 km/h 0.6 mm High 25
23 Aug 32.8 °C 26 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
24 Aug 31.5 °C 31 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
25 Aug 30.9 °C 37 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
26 Aug 30.7 °C 39 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
27 Aug 29.3 °C 40 % 32 km/h 0.5 mm High 32
28 Aug 30.8 °C 31 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
29 Aug 30.9 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
30 Aug 31.0 °C 37 % 32 km/h 0.1 mm High 36
31 Aug 31.4 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
1 Sept 32.1 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
2 Sept 31.2 °C 29 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
3 Sept 31.6 °C 27 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
4 Sept 32.0 °C 33 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
5 Sept 30.6 °C 37 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
6 Sept 31.9 °C 33 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
7 Sept 31.2 °C 34 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
8 Sept 29.7 °C 36 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
9 Sept 28.9 °C 41 % 32 km/h 0.2 mm High 32
10 Sept 31.0 °C 41 % 33 km/h 0.2 mm High 32
11 Sept 32.0 °C 37 % 26 km/h 0.2 mm High 32
12 Sept 32.8 °C 30 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
13 Sept 32.3 °C 31 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
14 Sept 31.9 °C 30 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
15 Sept after 32.8 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
16 Sept after 31.5 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
17 Sept after 32.1 °C 33 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
18 Sept after 32.7 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
19 Sept after 32.4 °C 29 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
20 Sept after 32.3 °C 32 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
21 Sept after 33.0 °C 34 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
22 Sept after 31.1 °C 39 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
23 Sept after 30.8 °C 44 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
24 Sept after 31.9 °C 42 % 27 km/h 0.2 mm High 29

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Aug 2026
After · 21 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 17 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 75 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 52: 3.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak75 µg/m³
Days over the guideline15 days
PM1077 µg/m³
Optical depth1.02
1415161718192021222324252627282930311234567891011121314151617
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 · 567Every 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 Mecula fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 16 August 2026 to 14 September 2026 (30 days). The perimeter dates it from 19 August 2026 to 11 September 2026.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 18,777 hectares (187.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mecula (18,877 ha, 1.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.8 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 40 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.