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Lupane fire, 9 October 2018 Lupane

Out · last detection 14 Oct 2018, 23:25 UTC

The fire started on 9 October 2018 in Lupane, Zimbabwe, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,864 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 78th largest in Matabeleland North since 2016 (of 484 with a page). Number 21 in Zimbabwe in 2018, of 265.

Burnt area
4,864ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
9 Oct 2018 – 13 Oct 2018
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
9 Oct
2018
Heat detections
128
in a single hotspot: 103 MW
Danger at start
52
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
2.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

14 Oct 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Oct13 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

91011121314

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
47km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone 30 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

11% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 532 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Lupane where it started
    4,901 ha reached on 9 Oct
    0.5 %

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)
9 Oct 31.2 °C 11 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
10 Oct 31.8 °C 14 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
11 Oct 33.6 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
12 Oct 36.2 °C 11 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
13 Oct 33.8 °C 20 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
14 Oct after 33.6 °C 20 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
15 Oct after 34.6 °C 25 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
16 Oct after 35.2 °C 20 % 26 km/h 0.5 mm Very high 46
17 Oct after 36.0 °C 19 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
18 Oct after 36.3 °C 11 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
19 Oct after 34.6 °C 23 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
20 Oct after 35.5 °C 28 % 47 km/h 0.6 mm Very high 46
21 Oct after 29.2 °C 32 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
22 Oct after 27.1 °C 20 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
23 Oct after 26.4 °C 20 % 43 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.

Before · 2 Oct 2018
After · 20 Oct 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 · 128Every 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 9 October 2018 and 13 October 2018: 5 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 4,864 hectares (48.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Lupane (4,901 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.2 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, 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.