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Bubi fire, 9 October 2026 Bubi

Out · last detection 9 Oct 2026, 12:32 UTC

The fire started on 9 October 2026 in Bubi, Zimbabwe, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,163 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 406th largest in Matabeleland North since 2016 (of 487 with a page). Number 261 in Zimbabwe in 2026, of 377.

The power measured by the satellite is low (6.8 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
1,163ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
1day
9 Oct 2026 – 9 Oct 2026
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
9 Oct
2026
Heat detections
15
in a single hotspot: 7 MW
Danger at start
23
High · FWI index
Energy released
79MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Oct9 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

9

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
32km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

87% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,008 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Bubi where it started
    1,167 ha reached on 9 Oct
    0.2 %

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)
9 Oct 31.2 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
10 Oct after 32.3 °C 24 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
11 Oct after 32.6 °C 15 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
12 Oct after 32.6 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
13 Oct after 33.9 °C 18 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
14 Oct after 33.6 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
15 Oct after 33.3 °C 22 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
16 Oct after 32.6 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
17 Oct after 32.4 °C 21 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
18 Oct after 33.3 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 34

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 Oct 2026
After · 16 Oct 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 7 October 2026 the air beside the fire reached 18 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak18 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1018 µg/m³
Optical depth0.53
789101112
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 · 15Every 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 Bubi fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 9 October 2026 and 9 October 2026: 1 day 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 1,163 hectares (11.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Bubi (1,167 ha, 0.2 %).
Is the Bubi fire still active?
No fire detections since 9 Oct 2026, 12:32 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.2 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 23, 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

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.