How long did the Muecate fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 27 September 2026 to 21 October 2026 (25 days). The perimeter dates it from 4 October 2026 to 14 October 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,500 hectares (35.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Muecate (3,519 ha, 0.8 %).

Is the Muecate fire still active?

No fire detections since 22 Oct 2026, 11:49 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 35.6 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 45 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.

MZ · Mozambique · 2026-09-27 → 2026-10-21

Muecate fire, 27 September 2026 Muecate

Out · last detection 22 Oct 2026, 11:49 UTC

The fire started on 27 September 2026 in Muecate, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 25 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,500 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 280th largest in Nampula since 2016 (of 392 with a page). Number 409 in Mozambique in 2026, of 545.

The power measured by the satellite is low (26.2 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: Muecate · 2020 Muecate · 2026 Mecubúri · 2025 Mecubúri · 2022

Burnt area: 3,500ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 25days; 27 Sept 2026 – 21 Oct 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 27 Sept; 2026
Heat detections: 88; in a single hotspot: 26 MW
Danger at start: 16; Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power: 35MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Sept21 Oct

Play back 22 Oct 2026

How it evolved, day by day

27 Sept 28 Sept 3 Oct 6 Oct 9 Oct 13 Oct 17 Oct 20 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

36°high

45km/h · peak gust

29%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

57% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 47 ha in 2016, 669 ha in 2018, 332 ha in 2019, 695 ha in 2020, 71 ha in 2021, 301 ha in 2022, 782 ha in 2023, 376 ha in 2024, 232 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,006 ha that had burned before.

9 ha Muecate fire, August 2020 3,553 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 (35 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

Muecate where it started

3,519 ha reached on 27 Sept

0.8 %

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.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025

Built-up area3.9 ha

Residents≈ 650

Inside the perimeter there were about 3.9 hectares of built-up land and about 650 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) · forecast models, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives

Day	High	Min. humidity	Peak gust	Rain	Danger (FWI)
27 Sept	30.5 °C	49 %	32 km/h	0.8 mm	Moderate 16
28 Sept	32.9 °C	39 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
29 Sept	32.2 °C	38 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
30 Sept	30.4 °C	43 %	40 km/h	4.7 mm	Low 7
1 Oct	29.0 °C	46 %	40 km/h	0.5 mm	Moderate 15
2 Oct	30.3 °C	40 %	29 km/h	0.5 mm	Moderate 17
3 Oct	27.9 °C	62 %	29 km/h	2.8 mm	Very low 4
4 Oct	30.6 °C	46 %	28 km/h	2.6 mm	Very low 4
5 Oct	31.9 °C	36 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 16
6 Oct	31.8 °C	37 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
7 Oct	32.5 °C	37 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
8 Oct	33.4 °C	34 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
9 Oct	32.5 °C	35 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
10 Oct	33.3 °C	32 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
11 Oct	32.5 °C	31 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
12 Oct	33.3 °C	30 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
13 Oct	33.3 °C	31 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
14 Oct	32.4 °C	33 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
15 Oct	33.5 °C	29 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
16 Oct	32.9 °C	32 %	40 km/h	0.1 mm	High 34
17 Oct	31.1 °C	31 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
18 Oct	32.1 °C	35 %	35 km/h	0.2 mm	High 33
19 Oct	33.6 °C	33 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
20 Oct	35.6 °C	30 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
21 Oct	35.3 °C	33 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
22 Oct after	35.4 °C	31 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
23 Oct after	35.7 °C	25 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
24 Oct after	33.9 °C	34 %	34 km/h	0.3 mm	High 37
25 Oct after	33.1 °C	38 %	40 km/h	0.1 mm	High 35
26 Oct after	33.5 °C	37 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
27 Oct after	34.2 °C	35 %	32 km/h	0.1 mm	High 37
28 Oct after	35.6 °C	26 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 20 Sept 2026

After · 28 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 9 October 2026 the air beside the fire reached 39 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 25: 1.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak39 µg/m³

Days over the guideline2 days

PM1041 µg/m³

Optical depth0.68

WHO 15

252627282930123456789101112131415161718192021222324

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 · 88Every 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 Muecate fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 27 September 2026 to 21 October 2026 (25 days). The perimeter dates it from 4 October 2026 to 14 October 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,500 hectares (35.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Muecate (3,519 ha, 0.8 %).
Is the Muecate fire still active?: No fire detections since 22 Oct 2026, 11:49 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 35.6 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 45 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

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.

Report an error

What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

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 4 October 2026 to 14 October 2026. 88 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
We have not matched this page with any official record.
Weather: ECMWF IFS model, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives.
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.

Where it burned