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Lupane fire, 1 September 2018 Lupane

Out · last detection 11 Sept 2018, 12:33 UTC

The fire started on 1 September 2018 in Lupane, Zimbabwe, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,301 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 35th largest in Matabeleland North since 2016 (of 484 with a page). Number 8 in Zimbabwe in 2018, of 265.

Burnt area
7,301ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
11days
1 Sept 2018 – 11 Sept 2018
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
1 Sept
2018
Heat detections
348
in a single hotspot: 48 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

11 Sept 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Sept11 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

123456791011

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
50km/h · peak gust
6%lowest humidity

It had gone 52 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. Lupane where it started
    7,328 ha reached on 31 Aug
    0.7 %

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)
1 Sept 29.4 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
2 Sept 29.2 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
3 Sept 31.7 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
4 Sept 32.4 °C 23 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
5 Sept 32.5 °C 21 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
6 Sept 31.8 °C 27 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
7 Sept 33.4 °C 23 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
8 Sept 32.2 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 45
9 Sept 28.6 °C 6 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
10 Sept 27.9 °C 10 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
11 Sept 28.5 °C 19 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
12 Sept after 30.5 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
13 Sept after 32.3 °C 18 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
14 Sept after 33.7 °C 17 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
15 Sept after 33.6 °C 16 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
16 Sept after 34.9 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
17 Sept after 34.3 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
18 Sept after 34.7 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
19 Sept after 34.5 °C 17 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
20 Sept after 35.0 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
21 Sept after 33.4 °C 18 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Aug 2018
After · 18 Sept 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 · 348Every 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 Lupane fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 September 2018 and 11 September 2018: 11 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 7,301 hectares (73.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Lupane (7,328 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.4 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 57, 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

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.