How long did the Hurungwe fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 17 July 2016 and 6 August 2016: 21 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 6,176 hectares (61.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Hurungwe (6,187 ha, 0.3 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 30.5 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 60 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.

ZW · Zimbabwe · 2016-07-17 → 2016-08-06

Hurungwe fire, 17 July 2016 Hurungwe

Out · last detection 6 Aug 2016, 23:05 UTC

The fire started on 17 July 2016 in Hurungwe, Zimbabwe, and satellites saw it burning for 21 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,176 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 40th largest in Mashonaland West since 2016 (of 823 with a page). Number 5 in Zimbabwe in 2016, of 229.

The power measured by the satellite is low (12.7 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: 6,176ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 21days; 17 Jul 2016 – 6 Aug 2016
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 17 Jul; 2016
Heat detections: 176; in a single hotspot: 13 MW
Danger at start: 31; High · FWI index
Energy released: 492MW; sum of detected power

Play back 6 Aug 2016

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Jul6 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

1718192122232425262728293031123456

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

The weather it burned in

30°high

60km/h · peak gust

21%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months 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

Hurungwe where it started

6,187 ha reached on 17 Jul

0.3 %

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)
17 Jul	23.5 °C	30 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
18 Jul	23.6 °C	32 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
19 Jul	22.5 °C	36 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
20 Jul	23.1 °C	39 %	42 km/h	0.1 mm	High 32
21 Jul	24.9 °C	33 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
22 Jul	26.5 °C	25 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
23 Jul	28.0 °C	21 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
24 Jul	28.8 °C	24 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
25 Jul	27.5 °C	40 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
26 Jul	28.7 °C	39 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
27 Jul	29.5 °C	36 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
28 Jul	30.4 °C	27 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
29 Jul	30.5 °C	25 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
30 Jul	30.2 °C	29 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
31 Jul	27.8 °C	34 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
1 Aug	27.2 °C	31 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
2 Aug	28.5 °C	28 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
3 Aug	26.2 °C	37 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
4 Aug	28.1 °C	29 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
5 Aug	24.4 °C	37 %	60 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
6 Aug	24.4 °C	32 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
7 Aug after	23.8 °C	33 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
8 Aug after	25.6 °C	39 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
9 Aug after	25.0 °C	43 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
10 Aug after	22.9 °C	47 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
11 Aug after	25.4 °C	31 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
12 Aug after	25.6 °C	29 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
13 Aug after	26.3 °C	30 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
14 Aug after	27.6 °C	32 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
15 Aug after	29.2 °C	30 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
16 Aug after	27.0 °C	37 %	54 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 10 Jul 2016

After · 13 Aug 2016

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.

Detections table · 176Every 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 Hurungwe fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 17 July 2016 and 6 August 2016: 21 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 6,176 hectares (61.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Hurungwe (6,187 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 30.5 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 60 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

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