Nhamatanda fire, September 2026 Gondola, Nhamatanda
The fire started on 11 September 2026 in Nhamatanda, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,443 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 37th largest in Sofala since 2016 (of 214 with a page). Number 92 in Mozambique in 2026, of 532.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 9,443ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 18days
- 11 Sept 2026 – 28 Sept 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 11 Sept
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 258
- in a single hotspot: 33 MW
- Danger at start
- 17
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 110MW
- detected power per day, on average
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 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 6.2 mm on 29 Sept.
This area had burned before
85% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,276 ha in 2017, 3,156 ha in 2018, 4,063 ha in 2019, 1,830 ha in 2020, 3,473 ha in 2022, 926 ha in 2023, 65 ha in 2024, 2,468 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 8,023 ha that had burned before.
- 1,354 ha Nhamatanda fire, August 2019 4,301 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,187 ha Gondola fire, September 2019 3,101 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 607 ha Gondola fire, September 2018 6,128 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
5,884 ha reached on 13 Sept2.2 %
-
Nhamatanda where it started3,601 ha reached on 11 Sept0.9 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11 Sept | 31.0 °C | 46 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 12 Sept | 32.3 °C | 39 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 13 Sept | 31.6 °C | 39 % | 28 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 24 |
| 14 Sept | 31.0 °C | 36 % | 28 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 26 |
| 15 Sept | 33.6 °C | 32 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 16 Sept | 35.3 °C | 21 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 17 Sept | 35.9 °C | 24 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 18 Sept | 33.7 °C | 30 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 19 Sept | 31.0 °C | 43 % | 30 km/h | 1.8 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 20 Sept | 32.0 °C | 37 % | 28 km/h | 0.7 mm | High 24 |
| 21 Sept | 30.4 °C | 42 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 22 Sept | 30.9 °C | 45 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 23 Sept | 31.4 °C | 39 % | 28 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 26 |
| 24 Sept | 32.1 °C | 38 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 25 Sept | 30.6 °C | 40 % | 32 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 28 |
| 26 Sept | 32.6 °C | 30 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 27 Sept | 36.0 °C | 31 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 28 Sept | 36.2 °C | 38 % | 38 km/h | 0.2 mm | Very high 40 |
| 29 Sept after | 29.6 °C | 63 % | 42 km/h | 6.2 mm | Low 7 |
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 16 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 99 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 46: 3.0 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 · 258Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 6,128 haGondola1 September 2018 · 10 days · 8 km away
- 9,984 haGondolaSeptember 2026 · 17 days · 18 km away
- 16,281 haGorongosa27 September 2022 · 13 days · 28 km away
- 9,955 haGorongosa2 September 2018 · 7 days · 30 km away
- 11,598 haGorongosaOctober 2023 · 10 days · 31 km away
- 60,863 haGorongosa30 August 2026 · 31 days · 32 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Nhamatanda fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 11 September 2026 to 28 September 2026 (18 days). The perimeter dates it from 11 September 2026 to 23 September 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 9,443 hectares (94.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Gondola (5,884 ha, 2.2 %); Nhamatanda (3,601 ha, 0.9 %).
- Is the Nhamatanda fire still active?
- No fire detections since 28 Sept 2026, 10:58 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.2 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 11 September 2026 to 23 September 2026. 258 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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.