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Milange fire, 13 October 2025 Milange, Morrumbala

Out · last detection 1 Nov 2025, 10:57 UTC

The fire started on 13 October 2025 in Milange, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,559 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 313th largest in Zambézia since 2016 (of 842 with a page). Number 111 in Mozambique in 2025, of 313.

The power measured by the satellite is low (27.0 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
5,559ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
19days
13 Oct 2025 – 31 Oct 2025
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
13 Oct
2025
Heat detections
255
in a single hotspot: 27 MW
Danger at start
30
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

1 Nov 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Oct31 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

1314151617192023242526272930311

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

The weather it burned in

40°high
46km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 6.8 mm on 3 Nov.

This area had burned before

80% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,837 ha in 2016, 823 ha in 2017, 793 ha in 2018, 156 ha in 2019, 1,461 ha in 2020, 1,391 ha in 2021, 893 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,434 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Milange where it started
    4,223 ha reached on 10 Oct
    0.8 %
  2. Morrumbala
    1,370 ha reached on 10 Oct
    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)
13 Oct 36.5 °C 28 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
14 Oct 36.1 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
15 Oct 36.9 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
16 Oct 37.5 °C 18 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
17 Oct 35.1 °C 25 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
18 Oct 31.4 °C 43 % 30 km/h 0.9 mm High 22
19 Oct 36.8 °C 25 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
20 Oct 33.0 °C 36 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
21 Oct 29.4 °C 50 % 34 km/h 2.5 mm Low 9
22 Oct 29.1 °C 54 % 35 km/h 2.8 mm Low 6
23 Oct 30.0 °C 33 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
24 Oct 33.4 °C 32 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
25 Oct 37.2 °C 28 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
26 Oct 39.3 °C 22 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
27 Oct 40.1 °C 20 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
28 Oct 38.0 °C 27 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
29 Oct 35.8 °C 32 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
30 Oct 36.3 °C 28 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
31 Oct 34.3 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
1 Nov after 37.6 °C 28 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
2 Nov after 39.7 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
3 Nov after 33.3 °C 47 % 41 km/h 6.8 mm Low 7

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 6 Oct 2025
After · 7 Nov 2025

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 15 October 2025 the air beside the fire reached 65 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 34: 2.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak65 µg/m³
Days over the guideline11 days
PM1068 µg/m³
Optical depth1.16
111213141516171819202122232425262728293031123
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 · 255Every 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 Milange fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 13 October 2025 and 31 October 2025: 19 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 5,559 hectares (55.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Milange (4,223 ha, 0.8 %); Morrumbala (1,370 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.1 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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.