Molumbo fire, August 2026 Molumbo
The fire started on 16 August 2026 in Molumbo, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,540 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 317th largest in Zambézia since 2016 (of 842 with a page). Number 175 in Mozambique in 2026, of 532.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 5,540ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 17days
- 16 Aug 2026 – 1 Sept 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 16 Aug
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 84
- in a single hotspot: 49 MW
- Danger at start
- 15
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 38MW
- 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 one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.5 mm on 8 Sept.
This area had burned before
93% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,511 ha in 2016, 2,933 ha in 2017, 1,524 ha in 2018, 1,467 ha in 2019, 583 ha in 2021, 2,027 ha in 2022, 1,036 ha in 2023, 21 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,173 ha that had burned before.
- 948 ha Lugela fire, September 2017 40,697 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 840 ha Molumbo fire, September 2019 3,388 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 537 ha Molumbo fire, September 2018 4,186 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 42 ha Molumbo fire, August 2019 3,470 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
-
Molumbo where it started5,575 ha reached on 16 Aug1.3 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16 Aug | 23.7 °C | 42 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 17 Aug | 24.0 °C | 42 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 18 Aug | 25.6 °C | 39 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 19 Aug | 26.2 °C | 40 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 20 Aug | 25.7 °C | 49 % | 28 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 21 Aug | 28.5 °C | 40 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 22 Aug | 29.5 °C | 26 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 23 Aug | 30.4 °C | 22 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 24 Aug | 26.2 °C | 38 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 25 Aug | 25.6 °C | 46 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 26 Aug | 24.9 °C | 54 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 27 Aug | 25.7 °C | 40 % | 42 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 26 |
| 28 Aug | 24.9 °C | 47 % | 36 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 25 |
| 29 Aug | 24.2 °C | 49 % | 29 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 22 |
| 30 Aug | 29.6 °C | 30 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 31 Aug | 30.5 °C | 24 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 1 Sept | 29.5 °C | 29 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 2 Sept after | 29.8 °C | 26 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 3 Sept after | 29.9 °C | 29 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 4 Sept after | 30.8 °C | 30 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 5 Sept after | 30.1 °C | 34 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 6 Sept after | 28.7 °C | 36 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 7 Sept after | 27.6 °C | 36 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 8 Sept after | 21.7 °C | 60 % | 45 km/h | 1.5 mm | Moderate 13 |
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 3 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 147 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 88: 5.9 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 · 84Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 74,073 haLugela16 August 2026 · 30 days · 14 km away
- 77,917 haNamarrói11 September 2016 · 38 days · 15 km away
- 173,378 haLugelaSeptember 2022 · 37 days · 17 km away
- 111,849 haLugela12 September 2020 · 26 days · 22 km away
- 188,911 haLugela3 September 2025 · 64 days · 30 km away
- 219,876 haNamarrói16 August 2026 · 44 days · 38 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Molumbo fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 16 August 2026 to 1 September 2026 (17 days). The perimeter dates it from 18 August 2026 to 25 August 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,540 hectares (55.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Molumbo (5,575 ha, 1.3 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 30.5 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 35, 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
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.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 18 August 2026 to 25 August 2026. 84 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.