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Muembe fire, 4 October 2025 Muembe

Out · last detection 6 Nov 2025, 11:04 UTC

The fire started on 4 October 2025 in Muembe, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 34 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,424 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 63th largest in Niassa since 2016 (of 577 with a page). Number 49 in Mozambique in 2025, of 313.

Burnt area
9,424ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
34days
4 Oct 2025 – 6 Nov 2025
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
4 Oct
2025
Heat detections
720
in a single hotspot: 140 MW
Danger at start
31
High · FWI index
Energy released
7.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

6 Nov 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Oct6 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

45678910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031123456

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
59km/h · peak gust
30%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 16.4 mm on 7 Nov.

This area had burned before

43% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 221 ha in 2020, 97 ha in 2021, 3,892 ha in 2022, 2,631 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,036 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Muembe where it started
    9,492 ha reached on 4 Oct
    1.6 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre 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)
4 Oct 23.2 °C 32 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
5 Oct 23.8 °C 36 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
6 Oct 23.6 °C 43 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
7 Oct 24.7 °C 42 % 40 km/h 0.7 mm High 22
8 Oct 25.5 °C 46 % 44 km/h 0.3 mm High 22
9 Oct 27.1 °C 42 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
10 Oct 25.9 °C 48 % 42 km/h 0.4 mm High 23
11 Oct 26.6 °C 39 % 37 km/h 0.2 mm High 24
12 Oct 27.7 °C 34 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
13 Oct 27.7 °C 33 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
14 Oct 25.4 °C 41 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
15 Oct 25.8 °C 37 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
16 Oct 27.5 °C 34 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
17 Oct 27.0 °C 33 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
18 Oct 25.7 °C 34 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
19 Oct 26.2 °C 39 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
20 Oct 26.7 °C 38 % 38 km/h 0.2 mm High 30
21 Oct 26.9 °C 39 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
22 Oct 25.9 °C 40 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
23 Oct 25.9 °C 42 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
24 Oct 28.0 °C 36 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
25 Oct 28.7 °C 30 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
26 Oct 28.6 °C 38 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
27 Oct 30.7 °C 34 % 42 km/h 0.1 mm High 32
28 Oct 29.4 °C 38 % 42 km/h 0.1 mm High 33
29 Oct 28.3 °C 38 % 42 km/h 0.1 mm High 34
30 Oct 28.2 °C 37 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
31 Oct 28.7 °C 36 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
1 Nov 28.5 °C 34 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
2 Nov 29.5 °C 32 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
3 Nov 27.9 °C 47 % 59 km/h 0.5 mm High 33
4 Nov 26.8 °C 44 % 40 km/h 0.3 mm High 30
5 Nov 27.8 °C 49 % 31 km/h 1.0 mm Moderate 18
6 Nov 25.4 °C 55 % 32 km/h 0.6 mm Moderate 18
7 Nov after 23.5 °C 72 % 34 km/h 16.4 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 27 Sept 2025
After · 13 Nov 2025

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 20 October 2025 the air beside the fire reached 54 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 33: 2.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak54 µg/m³
Days over the guideline10 days
PM1056 µg/m³
Optical depth0.62
2345678910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031123456789
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 · 720Every 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Mozambique ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Muembe fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 October 2025 and 6 November 2025: 34 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 9,424 hectares (94.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Muembe (9,492 ha, 1.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.7 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 59 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

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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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.