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Mecula fire, 4 September 2026 Mecula

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

The fire started on 4 September 2026 in Mecula, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,033 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 154th largest in Niassa since 2016 (of 567 with a page). Number 152 in Mozambique in 2026, of 525.

Burnt area
6,033ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
4 Sept 2026 – 7 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
4 Sept
2026
Heat detections
104
in a single hotspot: 66 MW
Danger at start
34
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

7 Sept 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Sept7 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

4567

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
35km/h · peak gust
32%lowest humidity

It had gone 12 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

90% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 738 ha in 2016, 2,606 ha in 2017, 2,342 ha in 2018, 1,552 ha in 2019, 1,426 ha in 2021, 1,638 ha in 2023, 22 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,413 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mecula where it started
    6,078 ha reached on 4 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)
4 Sept 31.7 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
5 Sept 29.8 °C 38 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
6 Sept 30.9 °C 36 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
7 Sept 30.6 °C 34 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
8 Sept after 28.8 °C 37 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
9 Sept after 27.7 °C 42 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
10 Sept after 30.1 °C 42 % 34 km/h 0.2 mm High 28
11 Sept after 31.0 °C 37 % 27 km/h 0.1 mm High 29
12 Sept after 31.6 °C 32 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
13 Sept after 31.2 °C 33 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
14 Sept after 30.9 °C 31 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
15 Sept after 32.2 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
16 Sept after 30.6 °C 29 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
17 Sept after 31.0 °C 34 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 35

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Aug 2026
After · 14 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 5 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 89 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 36: 2.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak89 µg/m³
Days over the guideline6 days
PM1091 µg/m³
Optical depth0.86
2345678910
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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Mozambique ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Mecula fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 September 2026 and 7 September 2026: 4 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 6,033 hectares (60.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mecula (6,078 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.7 °C, humidity dropped to 32 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, 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

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.