Murrupula fire, 9 September 2025 Murrupula, Ribaué, Gilé
The fire started on 9 September 2025 in Murrupula, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 22 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 43,808 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 7th largest in Nampula since 2016 (of 392 with a page). Number 9 in Mozambique in 2025, of 313.
- Burnt area
- 43,808ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 22days
- 9 Sept 2025 – 30 Sept 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- districts
- Started on
- 9 Sept
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 1,350
- in a single hotspot: 91 MW
- Danger at start
- 31
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 12.1GW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 21 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.9 mm on 1 Oct.
This area had burned before
95% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 15,698 ha in 2016, 13,625 ha in 2017, 18,790 ha in 2018, 15,512 ha in 2019, 11,186 ha in 2020, 16,104 ha in 2021, 12,035 ha in 2022, 5,411 ha in 2023, 17,258 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 41,731 ha that had burned before.
- 11,819 ha Murrupula fire, September 2024 13,339 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 9,066 ha Murrupula fire, September 2018 11,300 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 6,525 ha Murrupula fire, September 2022 7,656 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 6,378 ha Murrupula fire, October 2016 7,095 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,785 ha Murrupula fire, September 2019 6,626 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,427 ha Murrupula fire, September 2021 4,234 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,402 ha Murrupula fire, October 2017 3,795 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,291 ha Murrupula fire, September 2020 3,688 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Murrupula where it started36,809 ha reached on 2 Sept12 %
-
7,035 ha reached on 2 Sept1.1 %
-
232 ha reached on 3 Sept0.0 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9 Sept | 31.5 °C | 35 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 10 Sept | 32.1 °C | 30 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 11 Sept | 31.2 °C | 31 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 12 Sept | 31.3 °C | 29 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 13 Sept | 30.9 °C | 29 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 14 Sept | 32.2 °C | 29 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 15 Sept | 30.5 °C | 36 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 16 Sept | 32.5 °C | 28 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 17 Sept | 34.4 °C | 23 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 18 Sept | 35.0 °C | 23 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 19 Sept | 32.0 °C | 39 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 20 Sept | 29.5 °C | 39 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 21 Sept | 31.0 °C | 34 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 22 Sept | 33.3 °C | 29 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 23 Sept | 34.2 °C | 27 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 24 Sept | 32.4 °C | 30 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 25 Sept | 32.5 °C | 27 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 26 Sept | 29.7 °C | 40 % | 37 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 35 |
| 27 Sept | 27.3 °C | 51 % | 35 km/h | 1.2 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 28 Sept | 31.9 °C | 35 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 29 Sept | 34.0 °C | 30 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 30 Sept | 32.0 °C | 34 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 1 Oct after | 27.7 °C | 56 % | 49 km/h | 2.9 mm | Low 11 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 13 September 2025 the air beside the fire reached 59 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 24: 1.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 1,350Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Murrupula fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 9 September 2025 and 30 September 2025: 22 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 43,808 hectares (438.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Murrupula (36,809 ha, 12 %); Ribaué (7,035 ha, 1.1 %); Gilé (232 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.0 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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.
Report an error
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.