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Lupane fire, 28 July 2026 Lupane

Out · last detection 28 Jul 2026, 12:00 UTC

The fire started on 28 July 2026 in Lupane, Zimbabwe, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,795 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 234th largest in Matabeleland North since 2016 (of 484 with a page). Number 101 in Zimbabwe in 2026, of 370.

Burnt area
1,795ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
1day
28 Jul 2026 – 28 Jul 2026
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
28 Jul
2026
Heat detections
50
in a single hotspot: 62 MW
Danger at start
38
High · FWI index
Energy released
903MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Jul28 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

28

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

The weather it burned in

28°high
20km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone 36 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

92% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 847 ha in 2017, 172 ha in 2019, 3 ha in 2021, 1,390 ha in 2022, 179 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,644 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Lupane where it started
    1,805 ha reached on 28 Jul
    0.2 %

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)
28 Jul 28.1 °C 14 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
29 Jul after 25.7 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
30 Jul after 27.9 °C 14 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
31 Jul after 27.8 °C 14 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
1 Aug after 25.0 °C 21 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
2 Aug after 24.7 °C 19 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
3 Aug after 26.1 °C 14 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
4 Aug after 26.5 °C 17 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
5 Aug after 27.3 °C 17 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
6 Aug after 27.9 °C 13 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
7 Aug after 26.8 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 Jul 2026
After · 4 Aug 2026

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 · Copernicus

On 29 July 2026 the air beside the fire reached 12 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak12 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1014 µg/m³
Optical depth0.20
262728293031
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 50Every 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 28 July 2026 and 28 July 2026: 1 day 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 1,795 hectares (18.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Lupane (1,805 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 28.1 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 20 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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

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.