How long did the Nicoadala fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 20 October 2025 and 8 November 2025: 20 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 15,140 hectares (151.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Nicoadala (7,872 ha, 2.8 %); Mopeia (7,361 ha, 1.0 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 39.5 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 49 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.

MZ · Mozambique · 2025-10-20 → 2025-11-08

Nicoadala fire, October 2025 Nicoadala, Mopeia

Out · last detection 9 Nov 2025, 11:46 UTC

The fire started on 20 October 2025 in Nicoadala, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 20 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 15,140 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 97th largest in Zambézia since 2016 (of 845 with a page). Number 26 in Mozambique in 2025, of 313.

Burnt area: 15,140ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 20days; 20 Oct 2025 – 8 Nov 2025
Municipalities hit: 2; districts
Started on: 20 Oct; 2025
Heat detections: 670; in a single hotspot: 72 MW
Danger at start: 33; High · FWI index
Energy released: 3.6GW; sum of detected power

Play back 9 Nov 2025

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Oct8 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

2021232425262728293031124569

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

The weather it burned in

40°high

49km/h · peak gust

26%lowest humidity

It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 11 Nov.

This area had burned before

77% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,366 ha in 2016, 1,009 ha in 2017, 1,660 ha in 2018, 985 ha in 2019, 5,319 ha in 2020, 2,447 ha in 2021, 10,066 ha in 2022, 1,338 ha in 2023, 2,754 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 11,598 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Nicoadala where it started

7,872 ha reached on 13 Oct

2.8 %
Mopeia

7,361 ha reached on 13 Oct

1.0 %

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)
13 Oct	35.4 °C	36 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
14 Oct	33.4 °C	43 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
15 Oct	34.8 °C	37 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
16 Oct	36.0 °C	26 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
17 Oct	30.6 °C	54 %	49 km/h	0.8 mm	High 22
18 Oct	30.3 °C	53 %	34 km/h	0.2 mm	Moderate 20
19 Oct	33.3 °C	46 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
20 Oct	31.0 °C	51 %	35 km/h	0.2 mm	High 24
21 Oct	29.5 °C	53 %	41 km/h	0.5 mm	High 25
22 Oct	29.5 °C	46 %	42 km/h	0.4 mm	High 26
23 Oct	29.3 °C	41 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
24 Oct	32.1 °C	38 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
25 Oct	34.2 °C	46 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
26 Oct	37.3 °C	32 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
27 Oct	38.2 °C	29 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
28 Oct	34.7 °C	47 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
29 Oct	33.4 °C	45 %	40 km/h	0.1 mm	High 33
30 Oct	33.8 °C	46 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
31 Oct	32.5 °C	49 %	36 km/h	0.9 mm	High 24
1 Nov	35.5 °C	42 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
2 Nov	39.5 °C	34 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
3 Nov	31.3 °C	65 %	45 km/h	3.5 mm	Low 8
4 Nov	31.9 °C	56 %	35 km/h	1.4 mm	Low 10
5 Nov	33.3 °C	45 %	42 km/h	0.1 mm	High 24
6 Nov	32.3 °C	45 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
7 Nov	30.1 °C	46 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
8 Nov	30.7 °C	46 %	37 km/h	0.2 mm	High 25
9 Nov after	30.3 °C	49 %	32 km/h	0.6 mm	High 22
10 Nov after	31.0 °C	49 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
11 Nov after	32.6 °C	53 %	27 km/h	1.0 mm	Moderate 17

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 13 Oct 2025

After · 15 Nov 2025

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 29 October 2025 the air beside the fire reached 17 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak17 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1021 µg/m³

Optical depth0.51

WHO 15

18192021222324252627282930311234567891011

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 · 670Every 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 Nicoadala fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 20 October 2025 and 8 November 2025: 20 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 15,140 hectares (151.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Nicoadala (7,872 ha, 2.8 %); Mopeia (7,361 ha, 1.0 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 39.5 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 49 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

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