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Hurungwe fire, 25 July 2018 Hurungwe

Out · last detection 17 Aug 2018, 12:02 UTC

The fire started on 25 July 2018 in Hurungwe, Zimbabwe, and satellites saw it burning for 23 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 11,781 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 15th largest in Mashonaland West since 2016 (of 823 with a page). Number 5 in Zimbabwe in 2018, of 265.

Burnt area
11,781ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
23days
25 Jul 2018 – 16 Aug 2018
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
25 Jul
2018
Heat detections
376
in a single hotspot: 34 MW
Danger at start
33
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

17 Aug 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 25 Jul16 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

25262728293031123456781011121314151617

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
54km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 17 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

  1. Hurungwe where it started
    11,814 ha reached on 20 Jul
    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)
25 Jul 23.0 °C 36 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
26 Jul 24.5 °C 33 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
27 Jul 24.4 °C 30 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
28 Jul 26.1 °C 30 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
29 Jul 25.8 °C 35 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
30 Jul 26.7 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
31 Jul 27.7 °C 32 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
1 Aug 26.9 °C 28 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
2 Aug 27.9 °C 22 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
3 Aug 28.8 °C 20 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
4 Aug 24.7 °C 29 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
5 Aug 27.1 °C 29 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
6 Aug 29.3 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
7 Aug 31.5 °C 21 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
8 Aug 32.1 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
9 Aug 28.8 °C 34 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
10 Aug 28.6 °C 36 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
11 Aug 30.1 °C 28 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
12 Aug 28.8 °C 27 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 Aug 28.8 °C 29 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
14 Aug 28.8 °C 26 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
15 Aug 29.0 °C 26 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
16 Aug 29.4 °C 25 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
17 Aug after 29.5 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
18 Aug after 30.1 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
19 Aug after 28.2 °C 32 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
20 Aug after 28.5 °C 26 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
21 Aug after 29.0 °C 22 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
22 Aug after 29.7 °C 26 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
23 Aug after 30.0 °C 23 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
24 Aug after 30.0 °C 26 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
25 Aug after 29.1 °C 27 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
26 Aug after 29.1 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 18 Jul 2018
After · 23 Aug 2018

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 · 376Every 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 Hurungwe fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 25 July 2018 and 16 August 2018: 23 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 11,781 hectares (117.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Hurungwe (11,814 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.1 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, 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.