Makonde fire, September 2024 Makonde
The fire started on 27 September 2024 in Makonde, Zimbabwe, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,601 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 145th largest in Mashonaland West since 2016 (of 824 with a page). Number 15 in Zimbabwe in 2024, of 88.
The power measured by the satellite is low (12.9 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 2,601ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 4days
- 27 Sept 2024 – 30 Sept 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 27 Sept
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 91
- in a single hotspot: 13 MW
- Danger at start
- 44
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 74MW
- detected power per day, on average
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.
The weather it burned in
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
87% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 229 ha in 2016, 1,188 ha in 2018, 456 ha in 2019, 1,465 ha in 2021, 639 ha in 2022, 42 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,272 ha that had burned before.
- 1,188 ha Makonde fire, September 2018 1,466 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 936 ha Makonde fire, September 2021 1,596 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 529 ha Makonde fire, November 2021 5,294 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 384 ha Makonde fire, October 2022 6,062 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 294 ha Makonde fire, August 2019 2,093 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 255 ha Makonde fire, October 2022 1,012 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 167 ha Makonde fire, October 2016 2,671 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 161 ha Makonde fire, September 2019 1,294 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Makonde where it started2,607 ha reached on 27 Sept0.3 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2025Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 27 Sept | 35.3 °C | 16 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 28 Sept | 34.3 °C | 23 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 29 Sept | 34.4 °C | 23 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 30 Sept | 36.4 °C | 15 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 1 Oct after | 35.1 °C | 18 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 2 Oct after | 27.8 °C | 40 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 3 Oct after | 25.4 °C | 44 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 4 Oct after | 25.5 °C | 31 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 5 Oct after | 26.4 °C | 20 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 6 Oct after | 27.1 °C | 21 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 7 Oct after | 29.8 °C | 19 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 8 Oct after | 32.6 °C | 17 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 9 Oct after | 30.0 °C | 19 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 10 Oct after | 29.8 °C | 21 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
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 1 October 2024 the air beside the fire reached 72 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 28: 1.9 times the WHO daily 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 · 91Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 6,062 haMakonde19 October 2022 · 7 days · 6 km away
- 8,098 haMakonde 13 October 2026 · 12 days · 7 km away
- 5,294 haMakondeNovember 2021 · 4 days · 7 km away
- 4,676 haMakonde16 October 2022 · 9 days · 13 km away
- 7,438 haMakonde3 September 2026 · 21 days · 17 km away
- 13,596 haMbireSeptember 2025 · 14 days · 22 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Makonde fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 27 September 2024 and 30 September 2024: 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 2,601 hectares (26.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Makonde (2,607 ha, 0.3 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.4 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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
History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 91 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.