How long did the Moma fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 7 October 2026 to 23 October 2026 (17 days). The perimeter dates it from 7 October 2026 to 16 October 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,413 hectares (34.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Moma (1,808 ha, 0.5 %); Larde (1,627 ha, 0.9 %).

Is the Moma fire still active?

No fire detections since 24 Oct 2026, 11:32 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 35.3 °C, humidity dropped to 34 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 19, class Moderate.

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.

MZ · Mozambique · 2026-10-07 → 2026-10-23

Moma fire, October 2026 Moma, Larde

Dying down · last detection 24 Oct 2026, 11:32 UTC

The fire started on 7 October 2026 in Moma, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,413 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 293th largest in Nampula since 2016 (of 392 with a page). Number 417 in Mozambique in 2026, of 537.

The power measured by the satellite is low (14.8 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Larde · 2018 Larde · 2025 Larde · 2025 Larde · 2024

Is it still active?

No detections since 24 Oct 2026, 11:32 UTC. That usually means no flame is visible from space any more, although hotspots may remain. Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.

Burnt area: 3,413ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 17days; 7 Oct 2026 – 23 Oct 2026
Municipalities hit: 2; districts
Started on: 7 Oct; 2026
Heat detections: 61; in a single hotspot: 15 MW
Danger at start: 14; Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power: 23MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Oct23 Oct

Play back 24 Oct 2026

How it evolved, day by day

7 Oct 10 Oct 15 Oct 18 Oct 21 Oct 24 Oct

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

The weather it burned in

35°high

45km/h · peak gust

34%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

64% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 486 ha in 2016, 326 ha in 2017, 1,260 ha in 2018, 1,555 ha in 2019, 34 ha in 2020, 470 ha in 2021, 718 ha in 2022, 24 ha in 2023, 1,146 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,197 ha that had burned before.

980 ha Larde fire, October 2018 3,661 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 2.2% of the area of London (34 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

Moma where it started

1,808 ha reached on 7 Oct

0.5 %
Larde

1,627 ha reached on 7 Oct

0.9 %

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 2025

Built-up area3.0 ha

Residents≈ 600

Inside the perimeter there were about 3.0 hectares of built-up land and about 600 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)
7 Oct	35.3 °C	36 %	45 km/h	0.1 mm	Moderate 14
8 Oct	33.5 °C	44 %	41 km/h	3.1 mm	Very low 5
9 Oct	31.8 °C	51 %	38 km/h	0.1 mm	Low 8
10 Oct	31.1 °C	43 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 11
11 Oct	31.1 °C	42 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 14
12 Oct	31.8 °C	43 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 13
13 Oct	33.8 °C	43 %	41 km/h	0.6 mm	Moderate 14
14 Oct	34.3 °C	34 %	44 km/h	0.1 mm	Moderate 19
15 Oct	33.7 °C	36 %	36 km/h	2.9 mm	Low 8
16 Oct	32.0 °C	44 %	36 km/h	4.4 mm	Very low 3
17 Oct	32.4 °C	37 %	36 km/h	1.9 mm	Low 7
18 Oct	34.0 °C	31 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 30 Sept 2026

After · 24 Oct 2026

Before After

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 16 October 2026 the air beside the fire reached 26 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak26 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1027 µg/m³

Optical depth0.39

WHO 15

567891011121314151617

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 · 61Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Mozambique ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Moma fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 7 October 2026 to 23 October 2026 (17 days). The perimeter dates it from 7 October 2026 to 16 October 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,413 hectares (34.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Moma (1,808 ha, 0.5 %); Larde (1,627 ha, 0.9 %).
Is the Moma fire still active?: No fire detections since 24 Oct 2026, 11:32 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 35.3 °C, humidity dropped to 34 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 19, class Moderate.
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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

RSS Changes to this page

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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What really happened?

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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 7 October 2026 to 16 October 2026. 61 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.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.