Lupane fire, May 2026 Lupane, Hwange
The fire started on 28 May 2026 in Lupane, Zimbabwe, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,291 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 344th largest in Matabeleland North since 2016 (of 484 with a page). Number 205 in Zimbabwe in 2026, of 370.
The power measured by the satellite is low (16.4 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
- Burnt area
- 1,291ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 3days
- 28 May 2026 – 30 May 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 28 May
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 24
- in a single hotspot: 16 MW
- Energy released
- 219MW
- sum of detected power
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.
This area had burned before
92% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 694 ha in 2016, 1,071 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,186 ha that had burned before.
- 1,071 ha Lupane fire, October 2019 26,931 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 598 ha Lupane fire, July 2016 3,687 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 94 ha Hwange fire, September 2016 3,692 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2 ha Lupane fire, July 2016 1,222 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Lupane where it started1,147 ha reached on 29 May0.1 %
-
152 ha reached on 28 May0.0 %
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.
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 26 May 2026 the air beside the fire reached 18 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO 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 · 24Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 26,931 haLupane19 October 2019 · 8 days · 9 km away
- 23,883 haLupane5 October 2022 · 11 days · 20 km away
- 13,313 haLupane1 September 2023 · 6 days · 22 km away
- 10,854 haLupane10 September 2026 · 11 days · 22 km away
- 13,018 haLupane26 August 2019 · 7 days · 27 km away
- 7,383 haLupane12 September 2019 · 10 days · 32 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Lupane fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 28 May 2026 and 30 May 2026: 3 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 1,291 hectares (12.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Lupane (1,147 ha, 0.1 %); Hwange (152 ha, 0.0 %).
- 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.
Report an error
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.