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Mulevala fire, August 2025 Mulevala

Out · last detection 19 Sept 2025, 11:02 UTC

The fire started on 24 August 2025 in Mulevala, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 26 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,748 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 124th largest in Zambézia since 2016 (of 842 with a page). Number 34 in Mozambique in 2025, of 313.

Burnt area
12,748ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
26days
24 Aug 2025 – 18 Sept 2025
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
24 Aug
2025
Heat detections
432
in a single hotspot: 50 MW
Danger at start
28
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

19 Sept 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Aug18 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

242526272830123456789101112131416171819

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
42km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.0 mm on 26 Sept.

This area had burned before

66% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,152 ha in 2017, 766 ha in 2018, 2,137 ha in 2019, 4,491 ha in 2021, 1,207 ha in 2022, 3,308 ha in 2023, 1,219 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 8,393 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mulevala where it started
    12,826 ha reached on 22 Aug
    4.7 %

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)
22 Aug 29.6 °C 30 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
23 Aug 32.3 °C 27 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
24 Aug 34.0 °C 17 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
25 Aug 34.1 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
26 Aug 33.1 °C 23 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
27 Aug 31.5 °C 33 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
28 Aug 30.5 °C 39 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
29 Aug 30.7 °C 39 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
30 Aug 31.9 °C 31 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
31 Aug 32.0 °C 32 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
1 Sept 29.5 °C 39 % 26 km/h 0.1 mm High 31
2 Sept 28.9 °C 43 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
3 Sept 30.0 °C 36 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
4 Sept 33.3 °C 30 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
5 Sept 30.5 °C 41 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
6 Sept 33.4 °C 27 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
7 Sept 33.5 °C 25 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
8 Sept 31.3 °C 36 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
9 Sept 32.1 °C 40 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
10 Sept 33.4 °C 30 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
11 Sept 33.3 °C 26 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
12 Sept 33.5 °C 25 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
13 Sept 31.9 °C 33 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
14 Sept 33.2 °C 31 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
15 Sept 31.5 °C 41 % 27 km/h 0.1 mm High 34
16 Sept 34.7 °C 27 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
17 Sept 36.0 °C 24 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
18 Sept 36.9 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
19 Sept after 33.2 °C 38 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
20 Sept after 30.5 °C 36 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
21 Sept after 31.2 °C 37 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
22 Sept after 34.1 °C 32 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
23 Sept after 36.2 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
24 Sept after 34.5 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
25 Sept after 33.9 °C 30 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
26 Sept after 29.1 °C 53 % 38 km/h 2.0 mm Moderate 13

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 17 Aug 2025
After · 25 Sept 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 25 August 2025 the air beside the fire reached 50 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 24: 1.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak50 µg/m³
Days over the guideline16 days
PM1052 µg/m³
Optical depth0.88
22232425262728293031123456789101112131415161718192021
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 · 432Every 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 Mulevala fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 24 August 2025 and 18 September 2025: 26 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 12,748 hectares (127.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mulevala (12,826 ha, 4.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.9 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, class Very 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.