Chipinge fire, 31 August 2026 Zimbabwe
The fire started on 31 August 2026 in Chipinge, Zimbabwe, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,252 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 80th largest in Manicaland since 2016 (of 136 with a page). Number 232 in Zimbabwe in 2026, of 378.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 1,252ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 5days
- 31 Aug 2026 – 4 Sept 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 0
- districts
- Started on
- 31 Aug
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 31
- in a single hotspot: 60 MW
- Danger at start
- 25
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 507MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
2 Sept 2026 · 507 MW · 31
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 17 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 5 Sept.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
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.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2025Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 31 Aug | 32.4 °C | 34 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 1 Sept | 32.3 °C | 26 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 2 Sept | 32.2 °C | 24 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 3 Sept | 33.9 °C | 26 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 4 Sept | 35.4 °C | 25 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 5 Sept after | 28.0 °C | 48 % | 42 km/h | 1.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
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 4 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 74 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 52: 3.4 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 · 31Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 2,330 haChiredziAugust 2018 · 3 days · 27 km away
- 2,213 haChiredzi16 October 2017 · 2 days · 28 km away
- 2,912 haChiredzi16 October 2017 · 2 days · 32 km away
- 1,461 haChiredzi27 September 2018 · 2 days · 33 km away
- 2,338 haChiredziNovember 2019 · 4 days · 35 km away
- 2,607 haChiredziOctober 2025 · 3 days · 40 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Chipinge fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 31 August 2026 to 4 September 2026 (5 days). The perimeter dates it from 2 September 2026 to 2 September 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 1,252 hectares (12.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.4 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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
History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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 2 September 2026 to 2 September 2026. 31 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.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.