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Makonde fire, 24 August 2023 Makonde

Out · last detection 27 Aug 2023, 22:48 UTC

The fire started on 24 August 2023 in Makonde, Zimbabwe, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,774 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 91th largest in Mashonaland West since 2016 (of 823 with a page). Number 8 in Zimbabwe in 2023, of 173.

Burnt area
3,774ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
24 Aug 2023 – 27 Aug 2023
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
24 Aug
2023
Heat detections
130
in a single hotspot: 97 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

27 Aug 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Aug27 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

24252627

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

The weather it burned in

30°high
49km/h · peak gust
25%lowest humidity

It had gone 12 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

52% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 787 ha in 2017, 1,396 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,958 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Makonde where it started
    3,790 ha reached on 21 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)
24 Aug 29.7 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
25 Aug 28.8 °C 29 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
26 Aug 30.5 °C 25 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
27 Aug 28.9 °C 29 % 49 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 46
28 Aug after 25.3 °C 30 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
29 Aug after 23.1 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
30 Aug after 23.0 °C 31 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
31 Aug after 24.8 °C 30 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
1 Sept after 27.2 °C 24 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
2 Sept after 28.9 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
3 Sept after 29.2 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
4 Sept after 29.5 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
5 Sept after 29.1 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
6 Sept after 30.9 °C 21 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 35

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 17 Aug 2023
After · 3 Sept 2023

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 · 130Every 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 Makonde fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 24 August 2023 and 27 August 2023: 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 3,774 hectares (37.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Makonde (3,790 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.5 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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.