How long did the Mecula fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 1 September 2026 to 10 September 2026 (10 days). The perimeter dates it from 1 September 2026 to 7 September 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,186 hectares (51.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Mecula (5,218 ha, 0.3 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 31.6 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 40 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 · 2026-09-01 → 2026-09-10

Mecula fire, 1 September 2026 Mecula

Out · last detection 10 Sept 2026, 22:44 UTC

The fire started on 1 September 2026 in Mecula, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,186 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 205th largest in Niassa since 2016 (of 567 with a page). Number 185 in Mozambique in 2026, of 525.

Burnt area: 5,186ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 10days; 1 Sept 2026 – 10 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 1 Sept; 2026
Heat detections: 104; in a single hotspot: 82 MW
Danger at start: 35; High · FWI index
Energy released: 847MW; sum of detected power

Play back 10 Sept 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Sept10 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

1234710

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

40km/h · peak gust

29%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

81% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 738 ha in 2016, 2,753 ha in 2018, 127 ha in 2020, 2,403 ha in 2021, 67 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,190 ha that had burned before.

2,403 ha Mecula fire, August 2021 6,348 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Mecula where it started

5,218 ha reached on 1 Sept

0.3 %

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)
1 Sept	31.6 °C	29 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
2 Sept	30.8 °C	29 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
3 Sept	30.7 °C	31 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
4 Sept	31.3 °C	34 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
5 Sept	29.6 °C	41 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
6 Sept	31.4 °C	33 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
7 Sept	31.0 °C	35 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
8 Sept	28.9 °C	37 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
9 Sept	28.4 °C	43 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
10 Sept	31.4 °C	36 %	30 km/h	0.1 mm	High 32
11 Sept after	32.2 °C	32 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
12 Sept after	31.4 °C	35 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
13 Sept after	31.9 °C	33 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
14 Sept after	30.8 °C	33 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
15 Sept after	32.0 °C	31 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
16 Sept after	30.1 °C	35 %	32 km/h	0.2 mm	High 33
17 Sept after	31.5 °C	34 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
18 Sept after	32.2 °C	27 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
19 Sept after	31.6 °C	29 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
20 Sept after	31.2 °C	36 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 25 Aug 2026

After · 17 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 5 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 32 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 18: 1.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak32 µg/m³

Days over the guideline3 days

PM1036 µg/m³

Optical depth0.65

WHO 15

303112345678910111213

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 · 104Every 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 1 September 2026 to 10 September 2026 (10 days). The perimeter dates it from 1 September 2026 to 7 September 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,186 hectares (51.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Mecula (5,218 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 31.6 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 40 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