How long did the Muembe fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 October 2026 and 23 October 2026: 19 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 4,754 hectares (47.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Muembe (4,546 ha, 0.8 %); Chimbonila (244 ha, 0.0 %).

Is the Muembe fire still active?

Yes: satellites detected fire on 23 Oct 2026, 22:59 UTC. Check the emergency service for the official status.

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 31.6 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 24, 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 · 2026-10-05 → 2026-10-23

Muembe fire, 5 October 2026 Muembe, Chimbonila

Burning · last detection 23 Oct 2026, 22:59 UTC

The fire started on 5 October 2026 in Muembe, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,754 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 236th largest in Niassa since 2016 (of 577 with a page). Number 224 in Mozambique in 2026, of 532.

Is it still active?

Satellites detected fire on 23 Oct 2026, 22:59 UTC. Everything suggests it is still burning. 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: 4,754ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 19days; 5 Oct 2026 – 23 Oct 2026
Municipalities hit: 2; districts
Started on: 5 Oct; 2026
Heat detections: 156; in a single hotspot: 107 MW
Danger at start: 8; Low · FWI index
Energy released: 1.5GW; sum of detected power

Play back 23 Oct 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Oct23 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

5678910111314151617181920212223

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

The weather it burned in

32°high

41km/h · peak gust

26%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

60% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 148 ha in 2016, 342 ha in 2021, 70 ha in 2022, 68 ha in 2023, 1,097 ha in 2024, 2,496 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,831 ha that had burned before.

2,163 ha Muembe fire, October 2025 3,189 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Muembe where it started

4,546 ha reached on 5 Oct

0.8 %
Chimbonila

244 ha reached on 13 Oct

0.0 %

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)
5 Oct	28.8 °C	42 %	35 km/h	0.5 mm	Low 8
6 Oct	30.1 °C	33 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 12
7 Oct	30.2 °C	35 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 13
8 Oct	31.5 °C	29 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 16
9 Oct	30.1 °C	34 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 17
10 Oct	29.9 °C	37 %	35 km/h	0.8 mm	Moderate 13
11 Oct	31.6 °C	27 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
12 Oct	30.0 °C	37 %	37 km/h	0.6 mm	Moderate 16
13 Oct	29.9 °C	34 %	37 km/h	0.9 mm	Moderate 16
14 Oct	31.2 °C	29 %	36 km/h	0.3 mm	Moderate 20
15 Oct	30.9 °C	26 %	41 km/h	0.2 mm	High 23
16 Oct	29.9 °C	27 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
17 Oct	30.1 °C	31 %	37 km/h	0.4 mm	High 24
18 Oct	29.2 °C	32 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 28 Sept 2026

After · 23 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 10 October 2026 the air beside the fire reached 63 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 33: 2.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak63 µg/m³

Days over the guideline6 days

PM1066 µg/m³

Optical depth0.66

WHO 15

34567891011121314151617

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 · 156Every 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 Muembe fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 October 2026 and 23 October 2026: 19 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 4,754 hectares (47.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Muembe (4,546 ha, 0.8 %); Chimbonila (244 ha, 0.0 %).
Is the Muembe fire still active?: Yes: satellites detected fire on 23 Oct 2026, 22:59 UTC. Check the emergency service for the official status.
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 31.6 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 24, 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 ↗

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.