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Mecula fire, 19 August 2026 Mecula

Out · last detection 30 Aug 2026, 22:50 UTC

The fire started on 19 August 2026 in Mecula, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,080 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 79th largest in Niassa since 2016 (of 567 with a page). Number 101 in Mozambique in 2026, of 525.

Burnt area
8,080ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
19 Aug 2026 – 30 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
19 Aug
2026
Heat detections
125
in a single hotspot: 45 MW
Danger at start
31
High · FWI index
Energy released
749MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

30 Aug 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Aug30 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

1921222324252627282930

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
41km/h · peak gust
27%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

78% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 409 ha in 2016, 37 ha in 2017, 2,232 ha in 2018, 979 ha in 2019, 1,532 ha in 2020, 577 ha in 2021, 3,346 ha in 2022, 614 ha in 2023, 1,310 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,301 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mecula where it started
    8,124 ha reached on 19 Aug
    0.4 %

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)
19 Aug 29.5 °C 38 % 30 km/h 0.1 mm High 31
20 Aug 31.5 °C 30 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
21 Aug 32.0 °C 39 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
22 Aug 33.4 °C 30 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
23 Aug 33.3 °C 27 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
24 Aug 32.4 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
25 Aug 32.3 °C 35 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
26 Aug 31.9 °C 37 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
27 Aug 31.6 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
28 Aug 31.7 °C 31 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
29 Aug 30.8 °C 31 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
30 Aug 31.9 °C 36 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
31 Aug after 31.6 °C 36 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
1 Sept after 32.9 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
2 Sept after 32.2 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
3 Sept after 31.8 °C 31 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
4 Sept after 32.6 °C 33 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
5 Sept after 31.2 °C 38 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
6 Sept after 32.5 °C 31 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
7 Sept after 32.2 °C 35 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
8 Sept after 30.7 °C 35 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
9 Sept after 29.6 °C 43 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 12 Aug 2026
After · 6 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 41 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 23: 1.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak41 µg/m³
Days over the guideline5 days
PM1043 µg/m³
Optical depth0.62
17181920212223242526272829303112
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 · 125Every 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 19 August 2026 to 30 August 2026 (12 days). The perimeter dates it from 21 August 2026 to 29 August 2026.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 8,080 hectares (80.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mecula (8,124 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.4 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, 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.