How long did the Mutarara fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 29 July 2026 and 11 August 2026: 14 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 3,589 hectares (35.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Mutarara (3,615 ha, 1.3 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 35.3 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 44 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.

MZ · Mozambique · 2026-07-29 → 2026-08-11

Mutarara fire, July 2026 Mutarara

Out · last detection 11 Aug 2026, 10:58 UTC

The fire started on 29 July 2026 in Mutarara, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,589 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 83th largest in Tete since 2016 (of 114 with a page). Number 391 in Mozambique in 2026, of 532.

The power measured by the satellite is low (17.1 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area: 3,589ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 14days; 29 Jul 2026 – 11 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 29 Jul; 2026
Heat detections: 60; in a single hotspot: 17 MW
Danger at start: 30; High · FWI index
Energy released: 298MW; sum of detected power

Play back 11 Aug 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Jul11 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

30311567891011

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

The weather it burned in

35°high

44km/h · peak gust

24%lowest humidity

It had gone 15 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 13 Aug.

This area had burned before

15% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 544 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

Mutarara where it started

3,615 ha reached on 22 Jul

1.3 %

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 Jul	28.2 °C	42 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
23 Jul	29.0 °C	38 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
24 Jul	30.3 °C	39 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
25 Jul	25.3 °C	66 %	44 km/h	3.1 mm	Low 8
26 Jul	25.2 °C	54 %	40 km/h	0.1 mm	Moderate 14
27 Jul	24.4 °C	58 %	26 km/h	0.2 mm	Moderate 15
28 Jul	28.1 °C	38 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
29 Jul	27.4 °C	39 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
30 Jul	29.7 °C	36 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
31 Jul	27.6 °C	41 %	32 km/h	0.1 mm	High 28
1 Aug	25.8 °C	47 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
2 Aug	26.2 °C	49 %	30 km/h	0.2 mm	High 24
3 Aug	28.3 °C	35 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
4 Aug	28.3 °C	33 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
5 Aug	28.7 °C	34 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
6 Aug	29.0 °C	33 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
7 Aug	29.2 °C	34 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
8 Aug	28.7 °C	39 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
9 Aug	31.4 °C	38 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
10 Aug	35.1 °C	24 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
11 Aug	35.3 °C	30 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
12 Aug after	23.8 °C	72 %	44 km/h	0.7 mm	Moderate 20
13 Aug after	22.5 °C	68 %	46 km/h	1.1 mm	Moderate 14

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 22 Jul 2026

After · 18 Aug 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 11 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 74 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 41: 2.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak74 µg/m³

Days over the guideline15 days

PM1079 µg/m³

Optical depth1.29

WHO 15

2021222324252627282930311234567891011121314

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 · 60Every 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 Mutarara fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 29 July 2026 and 11 August 2026: 14 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 3,589 hectares (35.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Mutarara (3,615 ha, 1.3 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 35.3 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 44 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

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.

Where it burned