Kariba fire, 23 June 2023 Kariba
The fire started on 23 June 2023 in Kariba, Zimbabwe, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,792 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 136th largest in Mashonaland West since 2016 (of 826 with a page). Number 18 in Zimbabwe in 2023, of 173.
The power measured by the satellite is low (8.7 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Kariba · 2016Kariba · 2019Kariba · 2018Kariba · 2021
- Burnt area
- 2,792ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 7days
- 23 Jun 2023 – 29 Jun 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 23 Jun
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 118
- in a single hotspot: 9 MW
- Danger at start
- 31
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 44MW
- 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
92% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,748 ha in 2016, 1,175 ha in 2018, 1,153 ha in 2019, 59 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,571 ha that had burned before.
- 1,748 ha Kariba fire, October 2016 11,931 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,153 ha Kariba fire, July 2019 3,089 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,139 ha Kariba fire, August 2018 7,543 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 59 ha Kariba fire, October 2021 2,551 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 36 ha Kariba fire, August 2018 1,368 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
-
Kariba where it started2,807 ha reached on 23 Jun0.3 %
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 2025Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (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)
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23 Jun | 24.6 °C | 32 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 24 Jun | 24.1 °C | 39 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 25 Jun | 23.8 °C | 37 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 26 Jun | 23.1 °C | 38 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 27 Jun | 23.8 °C | 34 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 28 Jun | 25.3 °C | 34 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 29 Jun | 25.7 °C | 33 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 30 Jun after | 26.6 °C | 34 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 1 Jul after | 25.6 °C | 33 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 2 Jul after | 24.0 °C | 32 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 3 Jul after | 22.1 °C | 40 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 4 Jul after | 23.1 °C | 35 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 5 Jul after | 24.6 °C | 32 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 6 Jul after | 24.2 °C | 36 % | 29 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 27 |
| 7 Jul after | 23.9 °C | 35 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 8 Jul after | 21.8 °C | 44 % | 19 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 24 |
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 24 June 2023 the air beside the fire reached 26 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 18: 1.2 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 · 118Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 11,931 haKaribaOctober 2016 · 7 days · 2 km away
- 7,543 haKariba4 August 2018 · 9 days · 4 km away
- 7,236 haKariba12 October 2021 · 7 days · 11 km away
- 4,454 haKariba28 September 2026 · 2 days · 12 km away
- 5,437 haKariba7 October 2023 · 8 days · 15 km away
- 4,091 haKariba13 October 2021 · 5 days · 18 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Kariba fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 23 June 2023 to 29 June 2023 (7 days). The perimeter dates it from 23 June 2023 to 28 June 2023.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,792 hectares (27.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Kariba (2,807 ha, 0.3 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 25.3 °C, humidity dropped to 32 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 31, class 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
History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 28 June 2023 → 29 June 2023.
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 23 June 2023 to 28 June 2023. 118 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.