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Binga fire, 23 August 2026 Binga

Out · last detection 25 Aug 2026, 11:36 UTC

The fire started on 23 August 2026 in Binga, Zimbabwe, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,821 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 229th largest in Matabeleland North since 2016 (of 484 with a page). Number 98 in Zimbabwe in 2026, of 370.

Burnt area
1,821ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
23 Aug 2026 – 25 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
23 Aug
2026
Heat detections
66
in a single hotspot: 49 MW
Danger at start
34
High · FWI index
Energy released
382MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

25 Aug 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Aug25 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

232425

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

The weather it burned in

29°high
41km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

45% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 540 ha in 2016, 56 ha in 2019, 265 ha in 2020, 32 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 817 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Binga where it started
    1,832 ha reached on 23 Aug
    0.1 %

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)
23 Aug 29.3 °C 25 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
24 Aug 28.8 °C 23 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
25 Aug 27.4 °C 24 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
26 Aug after 29.0 °C 22 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
27 Aug after 28.0 °C 21 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
28 Aug after 25.2 °C 27 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
29 Aug after 25.8 °C 30 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
30 Aug after 27.2 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
31 Aug after 29.9 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
1 Sept after 30.3 °C 24 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
2 Sept after 29.0 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
3 Sept after 29.3 °C 29 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
4 Sept after 32.2 °C 26 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Aug 2026
After · 1 Sept 2026

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 26 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 36 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 22: 1.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak36 µg/m³
Days over the guideline3 days
PM1037 µg/m³
Optical depth0.36
2122232425262728
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 · 66Every 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Zimbabwe ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Binga fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 23 August 2026 and 25 August 2026: 3 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 1,821 hectares (18.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Binga (1,832 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.3 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 41 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 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

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.