How long did the Bindura fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 13 October 2026 to 21 October 2026 (9 days). The perimeter dates it from 18 October 2026 to 20 October 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 1,245 hectares (12.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Bindura (1,250 ha, 0.6 %).

Is the Bindura fire still active?

No fire detections since 21 Oct 2026, 11:32 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 32.8 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 29, class High.

Where does this data come from?

From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Zimbabwe (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

ZW · Zimbabwe · 2026-10-13 → 2026-10-21

Bindura fire, October 2026 Bindura

Out · last detection 21 Oct 2026, 11:32 UTC

The fire started on 13 October 2026 in Bindura, Zimbabwe, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,245 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 185th largest in Mashonaland Central since 2016 (of 334 with a page). Number 234 in Zimbabwe in 2026, of 377.

Burnt area: 1,245ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 9days; 13 Oct 2026 – 21 Oct 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 13 Oct; 2026
Heat detections: 26; in a single hotspot: 108 MW
Danger at start: 21; Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power: 50MW; detected power per day, on average

Play back 21 Oct 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Oct21 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

13 Oct 14 Oct 18 Oct 19 Oct 20 Oct 21 Oct

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

The weather it burned in

33°high

48km/h · peak gust

19%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

Bindura where it started

1,250 ha reached on 13 Oct

0.6 %

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	30.7 °C	26 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
14 Oct	30.6 °C	28 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
15 Oct	30.8 °C	25 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
16 Oct	30.2 °C	24 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
17 Oct	30.6 °C	23 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
18 Oct	31.4 °C	23 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
19 Oct	32.8 °C	19 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
20 Oct	34.4 °C	18 %	32 km/h	0.1 mm	High 32

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 6 Oct 2026

After · 23 Oct 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 19 October 2026 the air beside the fire reached 30 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 21: 1.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak30 µg/m³

Days over the guideline4 days

PM1032 µg/m³

Optical depth0.44

WHO 15

111213141516171819

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 · 26Every 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 Zimbabwe ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Bindura fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 13 October 2026 to 21 October 2026 (9 days). The perimeter dates it from 18 October 2026 to 20 October 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 1,245 hectares (12.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Bindura (1,250 ha, 0.6 %).
Is the Bindura fire still active?: No fire detections since 21 Oct 2026, 11:32 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 32.8 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 29, class High.
Where does this data come from?: From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Zimbabwe (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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What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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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 18 October 2026 to 20 October 2026. 26 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.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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