Burned area
satellite only1,574ha
Perimeter published by GWIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 29 Aug 2023 – 7 Sept 2023
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
ZW · Zimbabwe · –
Hurungwe fire, 29 August 2023 Hurungwe
Out · last detection 2 Sept 2023, 22:35 UTC
The fire started on 29 August 2023 in Hurungwe, Zimbabwe, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,574 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 263th largest in Mashonaland West since 2016 (of 644 with a page). Number 58 in Zimbabwe in 2023, of 173.
Use this data
Compare with…
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-10-27matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only10days
29 Aug 2023 to 7 Sept 2023: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 2 Sept 2023, 22:35 UTC
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only29 Aug 2023
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 29 Aug 2023
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only46
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 56 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 29 Aug 2023 – 7 Sept 2023
+− cross-check
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
The worst day
satellite only223MW
Total radiative power on 1 September 2023; hotspots that day: 18.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 1 Sept 2023
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model31.5FWI · high
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 60.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 29 Aug 2023, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model31.5°C · 25% RH
High of 31.5 °C and minimum humidity of 25% on 6 September 2023; gusts of 48 km/h on 5 September 2023.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 29 Aug 2023 – 7 Sept 2023
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
Living inside
model≈ 250people
Estimated residents inside the perimeter and 2.2 ha of built-up area (100 m grid, epoch 2025).
- Source
- GHSL R2023A · JRC
- Date
- calculated on 24 October 2026
+− cross-check
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.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
logLast day with fire: 2 September 2023 → 7 September 2023.
-
logStart date: 31 August 2023 → 29 August 2023.
-
· reconstructed GHSLPopulation and built-up area computed
What was saved on 27 October 2026
Every night a snapshot of what the page shows is saved. If anything changes, it appears in the list as a log entry.
- Area
- 1,574 ha
- Dates
- 29 Aug 2023 – 7 Sept 2023
- Name
- Hurungwe
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/hurungwe-2023-08-10?v=2026-10-27A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire hurungwe-2023-08-10.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-08-29 | 0 | 0 | 23.1 | 11.7 | 33 | 18 | 33.1 | 0 | 31.5 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-08-30 | 1 | 5 | 23 | 11.6 | 36 | 20 | 43.2 | 0 | 31.9 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-08-31 | 18 | 92 | 25.7 | 12.9 | 32 | 18.6 | 39.6 | 0 | 31.2 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-09-01 | 18 | 223 | 28 | 12.3 | 26 | 15.5 | 33.5 | 0 | 31.5 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-09-02 | 9 | 70 | 29.2 | 14.9 | 23 | 20.6 | 42.1 | 0 | 38.8 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2023-09-03 | 0 | 0 | 29.5 | 18.4 | 27 | 23.8 | 47.9 | 0 | 42.3 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2023-09-04 | 0 | 0 | 29.8 | 18.7 | 29 | 23.4 | 46.8 | 0 | 42.4 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2023-09-05 | 0 | 0 | 29.5 | 18.7 | 30 | 23.9 | 48.2 | 0 | 43.3 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2023-09-06 | 0 | 0 | 31.5 | 16.2 | 25 | 15.9 | 34.2 | 0 | 36.2 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-09-07 | 0 | 0 | 31.1 | 19.1 | 27 | 23.1 | 46.4 | 0 | 43.3 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2023-09-08 | 0 | 0 | 30.8 | 17.9 | 24 | 21.1 | 43.6 | 0 | 41.7 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2023-09-09 | 0 | 0 | 29.1 | 17.5 | 27 | 21.9 | 45 | 0 | 42.9 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2023-09-10 | 0 | 0 | 28.8 | 18.7 | 29 | 22.5 | 46.1 | 0 | 43.9 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2023-09-11 | 0 | 0 | 32.2 | 18.2 | 20 | 17.3 | 38.2 | 0 | 41.7 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2023-09-12 | 0 | 0 | 34.4 | 18.9 | 19 | 14.8 | 32.8 | 0 | 41.7 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2023-09-13 | 0 | 0 | 26.6 | 19.1 | 42 | 28.2 | 57.6 | 0 | 41.8 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2023-09-14 | 0 | 0 | 26.5 | 16.4 | 41 | 25 | 51.1 | 0 | 37.7 | alto | 0 |
| 2023-09-15 | 0 | 0 | 29.6 | 15.6 | 31 | 19.5 | 39.6 | 0 | 35 | alto | 0 |
| 2023-09-16 | 0 | 0 | 32.4 | 17.4 | 23 | 16.6 | 35.6 | 0 | 39.2 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2023-09-17 | 0 | 0 | 34.3 | 19.7 | 19 | 15.7 | 34.9 | 0 | 43 | muy_alto | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: GWIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0), GHSL (JRC). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 1,574ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 10days
- 29 Aug 2023 – 7 Sept 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 29 Aug
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 46
- in a single hotspot: 56 MW
- Danger at start
- 32
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 98MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
29 Aug7 Sept
2 Sept 2023
How it evolved, day by day
30 Aug
31 Aug
1 Sept
2 Sept
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
48km/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
48% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 59 ha in 2016, 256 ha in 2017, 623 ha in 2018, 27 ha in 2020, 75 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 757 ha that had burned before.
- 623 ha Hurungwe fire, August 2018 1,797 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 75 ha Hurungwe fire, August 2022 1,431 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 59 ha Hurungwe fire, July 2016 1,815 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 27 ha Hurungwe fire, September 2020 1,027 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
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.
What happened to each town
-
Hurungwe where it started1,583 ha reached on 30 Aug0.1 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2025Built-up area2.2 ha
Residents≈ 250
Inside the perimeter there were about 2.2 hectares of built-up land and about 250 residents (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)
Started with 60 days without rain: 63 % of the area in Zimbabwe
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 29 Aug | 23.1 °C | 33 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 30 Aug | 23.0 °C | 36 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 31 Aug | 25.7 °C | 32 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 1 Sept | 28.0 °C | 26 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 2 Sept | 29.2 °C | 23 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 3 Sept | 29.5 °C | 27 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 4 Sept | 29.8 °C | 29 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 5 Sept | 29.5 °C | 30 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 6 Sept | 31.5 °C | 25 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 7 Sept | 31.1 °C | 27 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 8 Sept after | 30.8 °C | 24 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 9 Sept after | 29.1 °C | 27 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 10 Sept after | 28.8 °C | 29 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 11 Sept after | 32.2 °C | 20 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 12 Sept after | 34.4 °C | 19 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 13 Sept after | 26.6 °C | 42 % | 58 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 14 Sept after | 26.5 °C | 41 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 15 Sept after | 29.6 °C | 31 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 16 Sept after | 32.4 °C | 23 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 17 Sept after | 34.3 °C | 19 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 31.5, a minimum humidity of 33% and more than two months without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 17.
FWI at the start
31.5
Minimum humidity
33 %
Days without rain
60+
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Hurungwe fire, 29 August 2023
1,574 ha
10 days
FWI 31.5
Min. humidity 33 %
Hurungwe fire, July 2018
1,395 ha
4 days
FWI 31.7
Min. humidity 33 %
55 km away, in 2018
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Hurungwe fire, August 2019
2,540 ha
8 days
FWI 31.4
Min. humidity 32 %
55 km away, in 2019
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Hurungwe fire, August 2016
1,245 ha
9 days
FWI 32.4
Min. humidity 32 %
19 km away, in 2016
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Hurungwe fire, August 2023
1,278 ha
1 day
FWI 32.0
Min. humidity 35 %
19 km away, in 2023
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Hurungwe fire, June 2018
1,847 ha
4 days
FWI 29.7
Min. humidity 33 %
53 km away, in 2018
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
What happened to them
- 5 days
- median duration
- 1,245 ha
- median area
- 100 %
- went past 1,000 ha
- —
- rain at the end (median; 0 of 17 had it)
It burned an area similar to its twins (1,574 ha against a median of 1,245 ha) and lasted 10 days, against 5 days.
In none of them did 1 mm fall in the ten days after the end: they all went out without rain.
This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it
How it ended
—first rain
—no rain in ten days
48km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 7 Sept, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. None of its 17 twins had rain when they ended.
Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)
How a twin is chosen
- Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
- Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
- Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
- Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
- They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 22 Aug 2023
After · 14 Sept 2023
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
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 5 September 2023 the air beside the fire reached 21 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 18: 1.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
PM2.5 peak21 µg/m³
Days over the guideline2 days
PM1030 µg/m³
Optical depth0.47
WHO 15
29 Aug31 Aug2 Sept4 Sept
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 · 46Every 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
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Hurungwe fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 29 August 2023 to 7 September 2023 (10 days). The perimeter dates it from 31 August 2023 to 2 September 2023.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 1,574 hectares (15.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Hurungwe (1,583 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 31.5 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, 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.
- How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
- Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 17. Their median duration was 5 days and their median area 1,245 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. In none of them did 1 mm fall in the ten days after the end: they all went out without rain.
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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 2 September 2023 → 7 September 2023.
- Start date: 31 August 2023 → 29 August 2023.
RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version
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 31 August 2023 to 2 September 2023. 46 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.