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Lupane fire, 23 August 2019 Lupane

Out · last detection 27 Aug 2019, 22:41 UTC

The fire started on 23 August 2019 in Lupane, Zimbabwe, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,361 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 90th largest in Matabeleland North since 2016 (of 484 with a page). Number 28 in Zimbabwe in 2019, of 282.

Burnt area
4,361ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
23 Aug 2019 – 26 Aug 2019
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
23 Aug
2019
Heat detections
180
in a single hotspot: 82 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

27 Aug 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Aug26 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

2324252627

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

The weather it burned in

29°high
36km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

34% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,088 ha in 2017, 376 ha in 2018.

What happened to each town

  1. Lupane where it started
    4,384 ha reached on 23 Aug
    0.4 %

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)
23 Aug 25.5 °C 12 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
24 Aug 26.0 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
25 Aug 26.7 °C 19 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
26 Aug 29.3 °C 23 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
27 Aug after 31.9 °C 23 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
28 Aug after 31.8 °C 28 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
29 Aug after 32.8 °C 19 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
30 Aug after 32.3 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
31 Aug after 32.0 °C 22 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
1 Sept after 31.5 °C 4 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
2 Sept after 30.3 °C 28 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
3 Sept after 29.8 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
4 Sept after 29.7 °C 21 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
5 Sept after 30.7 °C 20 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 37

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Aug 2019
After · 2 Sept 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 · 180Every 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 23 August 2019 and 26 August 2019: 4 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 4,361 hectares (43.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Lupane (4,384 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.3 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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.