Hwange fire, 22 September 2022 Hwange
The fire started on 22 September 2022 in Hwange, Zimbabwe, and satellites saw it burning for 27 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 35,803 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 3th largest in Matabeleland North since 2016 (of 496 with a page). Number 3 in Zimbabwe in 2022, of 346.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Hwange · 2016Hwange · 2017Hwange · 2021Hwange · 2021
- Burnt area
- 35,803ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 27days
- 22 Sept 2022 – 18 Oct 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 22 Sept
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 1,515
- in a single hotspot: 137 MW
- Danger at start
- 52
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 498MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
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 more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
11% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,338 ha in 2016, 1,201 ha in 2017, 2,367 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,896 ha that had burned before.
- 1,338 ha Hwange fire, September 2016 18,638 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,201 ha Hwange fire, August 2017 47,746 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 880 ha Hwange fire, July 2021 1,216 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 798 ha Hwange fire, July 2021 1,391 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 564 ha Hwange fire, October 2021 5,291 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 123 ha Hwange fire, October 2021 15,800 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2 ha Hwange fire, October 2021 3,626 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
-
Hwange where it started35,948 ha reached on 22 Sept1.3 %
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 2020Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, 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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22 Sept | 33.4 °C | 22 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 23 Sept | 34.1 °C | 20 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 24 Sept | 32.9 °C | 21 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 25 Sept | 33.0 °C | 17 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 26 Sept | 33.5 °C | 16 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 27 Sept | 35.1 °C | 18 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 28 Sept | 34.1 °C | 18 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 29 Sept | 32.5 °C | 19 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 30 Sept | 32.7 °C | 18 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 1 Oct | 33.6 °C | 18 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 2 Oct | 35.0 °C | 15 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 3 Oct | 35.5 °C | 14 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 4 Oct | 36.7 °C | 13 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 5 Oct | 35.5 °C | 17 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 6 Oct | 34.7 °C | 17 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 7 Oct | 35.0 °C | 16 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 8 Oct | 35.1 °C | 10 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 9 Oct | 34.3 °C | 13 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 10 Oct | 35.6 °C | 8 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 65 |
| 11 Oct | 34.3 °C | 12 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 65 |
| 12 Oct | 33.9 °C | 14 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 13 Oct | 34.5 °C | 15 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 65 |
| 14 Oct | 35.1 °C | 14 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 15 Oct | 35.5 °C | 15 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 16 Oct | 34.6 °C | 18 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 17 Oct | 34.0 °C | 21 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 18 Oct | 33.0 °C | 21 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 19 Oct after | 33.3 °C | 23 % | 44 km/h | 0.3 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 20 Oct after | 33.3 °C | 24 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 21 Oct after | 33.1 °C | 21 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 22 Oct after | 34.4 °C | 20 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 23 Oct after | 35.7 °C | 18 % | 44 km/h | 0.1 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 24 Oct after | 34.0 °C | 22 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 25 Oct after | 35.2 °C | 21 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 26 Oct after | 35.7 °C | 21 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 27 Oct after | 33.9 °C | 25 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 28 Oct after | 34.8 °C | 22 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
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 10 October 2022 the air beside the fire reached 53 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 35: 2.3 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 · 1,515Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 10,975 haHwange30 September 2019 · 6 days · 24 km away
- 11,187 haHwange2 September 2017 · 6 days · 28 km away
- 31,297 haHwange6 September 2017 · 11 days · 29 km away
- 8,654 haHwange25 September 2022 · 21 days · 29 km away
- 18,638 haHwange24 September 2016 · 7 days · 31 km away
- 15,800 haHwange10 October 2021 · 8 days · 31 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Hwange fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 22 September 2022 and 18 October 2022: 27 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 35,803 hectares (358.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Hwange (35,948 ha, 1.3 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.7 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 65, class Extreme.
- 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; 5 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 1,515 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 2020, 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.