Mocuba fire, 25 August 2021 Mocuba, Namacurra
The fire started on 25 August 2021 in Mocuba, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 23 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 20,265 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 76th largest in Zambézia since 2016 (of 841 with a page). Number 4 in Mozambique in 2021, of 233.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 20,265ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 23days
- 25 Aug 2021 – 16 Sept 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 25 Aug
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 1,777
- in a single hotspot: 133 MW
- Danger at start
- 28
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 768MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.2 mm on 23 Sept.
This area had burned before
86% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 6,577 ha in 2016, 1,274 ha in 2017, 10,657 ha in 2018, 6,562 ha in 2019, 11,418 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 17,471 ha that had burned before.
- 7,970 ha Mocuba fire, August 2018 23,063 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 6,600 ha Namacurra fire, September 2020 15,311 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,759 ha Namacurra fire, September 2019 3,071 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,709 ha Mocuba fire, September 2020 3,686 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 992 ha Mocuba fire, September 2016 3,447 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 210 ha Namacurra fire, September 2017 3,745 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 20 ha Namacurra fire, September 2017 3,213 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Mocuba where it started12,749 ha reached on 25 Aug1.4 %
-
7,651 ha reached on 25 Aug3.8 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25 Aug | 33.4 °C | 29 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 26 Aug | 31.9 °C | 36 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 27 Aug | 31.8 °C | 40 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 28 Aug | 35.9 °C | 24 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 29 Aug | 31.9 °C | 29 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 30 Aug | 25.2 °C | 72 % | 32 km/h | 5.1 mm | Very low 2 |
| 31 Aug | 29.1 °C | 44 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 1 Sept | 30.6 °C | 48 % | 37 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 2 Sept | 28.3 °C | 59 % | 35 km/h | 1.6 mm | Low 8 |
| 3 Sept | 29.0 °C | 54 % | 25 km/h | 0.2 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 4 Sept | 32.0 °C | 36 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 5 Sept | 33.2 °C | 26 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 6 Sept | 32.8 °C | 24 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 7 Sept | 33.5 °C | 23 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 8 Sept | 33.2 °C | 31 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 9 Sept | 30.9 °C | 37 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 10 Sept | 28.3 °C | 46 % | 49 km/h | 0.6 mm | High 26 |
| 11 Sept | 28.3 °C | 48 % | 35 km/h | 1.6 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 12 Sept | 27.2 °C | 61 % | 34 km/h | 0.5 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 13 Sept | 32.2 °C | 36 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 14 Sept | 35.5 °C | 21 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 15 Sept | 36.5 °C | 19 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 16 Sept | 37.0 °C | 23 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 17 Sept after | 37.5 °C | 29 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 18 Sept after | 27.9 °C | 63 % | 46 km/h | 0.9 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 19 Sept after | 26.7 °C | 43 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 20 Sept after | 29.7 °C | 30 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 21 Sept after | 33.6 °C | 26 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 22 Sept after | 28.2 °C | 50 % | 40 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 27 |
| 23 Sept after | 27.9 °C | 50 % | 37 km/h | 1.2 mm | Moderate 15 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.
Detections table · 1,777Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Mocuba fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 25 August 2021 to 16 September 2021 (23 days). The perimeter dates it from 1 September 2021 to 9 September 2021.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 20,265 hectares (202.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mocuba (12,749 ha, 1.4 %); Namacurra (7,651 ha, 3.8 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.0 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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
History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 9 September 2021 → 16 September 2021.
- Start date: 1 September 2021 → 25 August 2021.
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.
Report an error
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 1 September 2021 to 9 September 2021. 1,777 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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.