Makonde fire, 26 August 2025 Makonde, Mbire
The fire started on 26 August 2025 in Makonde, Zimbabwe, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,058 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 723th largest in Mashonaland West since 2016 (of 823 with a page). Number 132 in Zimbabwe in 2025, of 150.
- Burnt area
- 1,058ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 5days
- 26 Aug 2025 – 30 Aug 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 26 Aug
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 67
- in a single hotspot: 38 MW
- Energy released
- 273MW
- 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
100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 15 ha in 2016, 367 ha in 2017, 778 ha in 2018, 406 ha in 2019, 528 ha in 2020, 984 ha in 2021, 443 ha in 2022, 136 ha in 2023, 208 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,064 ha that had burned before.
- 778 ha Makonde fire, August 2018 2,065 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 590 ha Mbire fire, November 2021 2,478 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 528 ha Makonde fire, November 2020 2,279 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 441 ha Mbire fire, September 2022 2,514 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 406 ha Makonde fire, September 2019 1,808 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 367 ha Mbire fire, November 2017 1,647 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 359 ha Mbire fire, September 2021 2,670 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 208 ha Mbire fire, August 2024 1,372 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Makonde where it started956 ha reached on 26 Aug0.1 %
-
104 ha reached on 26 Aug0.0 %
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 29 August 2025 the air beside the fire reached 46 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 24: 1.6 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 · 67Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Makonde fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 26 August 2025 and 30 August 2025: 5 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 1,058 hectares (10.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Makonde (956 ha, 0.1 %); Mbire (104 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.