Mocuba fire, 27 August 2026 Mocuba, Mulevala, Mocubela
The fire started on 27 August 2026 in Mocuba, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 33 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 33,840 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 43th largest in Zambézia since 2016 (of 839 with a page). Number 28 in Mozambique in 2026, of 545.
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- Burnt area
- 33,840ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 33days
- 27 Aug 2026 – 28 Sept 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- districts
- Started on
- 27 Aug
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 1,054
- in a single hotspot: 138 MW
- Danger at start
- 26
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 280MW
- 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 12 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.7 mm on 29 Sept.
This area had burned before
80% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 6,497 ha in 2016, 3,051 ha in 2017, 6,313 ha in 2018, 1,204 ha in 2019, 6,448 ha in 2020, 6,625 ha in 2021, 5,842 ha in 2022, 2,160 ha in 2023, 15,458 ha in 2024, 12,346 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 27,077 ha that had burned before.
- 12,507 ha Mocubela fire, September 2024 19,028 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 6,449 ha Mocuba fire, September 2025 9,719 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,705 ha Mocuba fire, September 2025 4,253 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,171 ha Mocuba fire, September 2018 3,197 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,710 ha Mocuba fire, September 2018 3,141 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 started23,992 ha reached on 27 Aug2.7 %
-
9,384 ha reached on 30 Aug3.5 %
-
625 ha reached on 30 Aug0.1 %
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.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 57 hectares of built-up land and about 7,900 residents (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 27 Aug | 26.0 °C | 47 % | 38 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 26 |
| 28 Aug | 27.0 °C | 52 % | 30 km/h | 1.7 mm | Low 10 |
| 29 Aug | 27.2 °C | 49 % | 25 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 30 Aug | 32.2 °C | 30 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 31 Aug | 32.8 °C | 24 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 1 Sept | 31.6 °C | 27 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 2 Sept | 31.7 °C | 31 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 3 Sept | 33.1 °C | 25 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 4 Sept | 33.9 °C | 25 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 5 Sept | 32.5 °C | 31 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 6 Sept | 30.8 °C | 36 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 7 Sept | 29.4 °C | 37 % | 42 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 36 |
| 8 Sept | 24.6 °C | 51 % | 42 km/h | 2.2 mm | Low 10 |
| 9 Sept | 25.8 °C | 58 % | 30 km/h | 2.6 mm | Low 6 |
| 10 Sept | 29.2 °C | 51 % | 26 km/h | 0.2 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 11 Sept | 30.9 °C | 44 % | 32 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 22 |
| 12 Sept | 32.2 °C | 32 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 13 Sept | 31.4 °C | 32 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 14 Sept | 31.6 °C | 33 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 15 Sept | 34.4 °C | 24 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 16 Sept | 32.3 °C | 29 % | 58 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 17 Sept | 34.3 °C | 25 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 18 Sept | 34.0 °C | 21 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 19 Sept | 31.4 °C | 32 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 20 Sept | 30.6 °C | 33 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 21 Sept | 32.0 °C | 39 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 22 Sept | 30.2 °C | 45 % | 37 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 32 |
| 23 Sept | 29.6 °C | 39 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 24 Sept | 30.9 °C | 37 % | 36 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 33 |
| 25 Sept | 30.4 °C | 35 % | 37 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 32 |
| 26 Sept | 32.4 °C | 35 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 27 Sept | 35.9 °C | 25 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 28 Sept | 36.9 °C | 27 % | 32 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 40 |
| 29 Sept after | 33.3 °C | 42 % | 40 km/h | 1.7 mm | High 22 |
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.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 2 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 72 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 42: 2.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 1,054Every 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 27 August 2026 to 28 September 2026 (33 days). The perimeter dates it from 30 August 2026 to 21 September 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 33,840 hectares (338.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Mocuba (23,992 ha, 2.7 %); Mulevala (9,384 ha, 3.5 %); Mocubela (625 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.9 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 58 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, 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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 30 August 2026 to 21 September 2026. 1,054 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.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.