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Hwange fire, 28 May 2019 Hwange

Out · last detection 1 Jun 2019, 23:12 UTC

The fire started on 28 May 2019 in Hwange, Zimbabwe, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,333 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 92th largest in Matabeleland North since 2016 (of 484 with a page). Number 30 in Zimbabwe in 2019, of 282.

Burnt area
4,333ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
28 May 2019 – 2 Jun 2019
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
28 May
2019
Heat detections
104
in a single hotspot: 274 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

1 Jun 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 May2 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

282930311

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

The weather it burned in

26°high
37km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone 37 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

67% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,442 ha in 2016, 975 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,900 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Hwange where it started
    4,350 ha reached on 28 May
    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)
28 May 26.1 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
29 May 26.0 °C 24 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
30 May 25.3 °C 23 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
31 May 24.5 °C 25 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
1 Jun 25.7 °C 21 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
2 Jun 26.0 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
3 Jun after 25.1 °C 20 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
4 Jun after 24.5 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
5 Jun after 26.6 °C 21 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
6 Jun after 29.0 °C 12 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
7 Jun after 28.8 °C 13 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
8 Jun after 27.6 °C 20 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
9 Jun after 24.8 °C 31 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
10 Jun after 23.8 °C 31 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
11 Jun after 24.5 °C 32 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
12 Jun after 24.6 °C 30 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 May 2019
After · 9 Jun 2019

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 · 104Every 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 Hwange fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 28 May 2019 and 2 June 2019: 6 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 4,333 hectares (43.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Hwange (4,350 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 26.1 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, 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.