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Mangwe fire, October 2022 Mangwe, Matobo, Bulilima

Out · last detection 15 Oct 2022, 12:02 UTC

The fire started on 6 October 2022 in Mangwe, Zimbabwe, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 23,606 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the largest fire in Matabeleland South since 2016 (of 203 with a page). Number 7 in Zimbabwe in 2022, of 346.

Burnt area
23,606ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
6 Oct 2022 – 15 Oct 2022
Municipalities hit
3
districts
Started on
6 Oct
2022
Heat detections
824
in a single hotspot: 281 MW
Danger at start
54
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
9.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

15 Oct 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Oct15 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

6789101112131415

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
61km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.1 mm on 23 Oct.

This area had burned before

33% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,796 ha in 2016, 5,324 ha in 2018, 1,336 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,706 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mangwe where it started
    18,190 ha reached on 6 Oct
    3.2 %
  2. Matobo
    4,376 ha reached on 6 Oct
    0.6 %
  3. Bulilima
    1,091 ha reached on 9 Oct
    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)
6 Oct 34.3 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
7 Oct 35.0 °C 13 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
8 Oct 31.2 °C 19 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
9 Oct 34.0 °C 11 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
10 Oct 33.0 °C 14 % 61 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 70
11 Oct 31.3 °C 20 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
12 Oct 32.4 °C 12 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
13 Oct 33.4 °C 10 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
14 Oct 33.5 °C 14 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
15 Oct 32.4 °C 20 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
16 Oct after 30.0 °C 29 % 48 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 50
17 Oct after 31.2 °C 24 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
18 Oct after 30.2 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
19 Oct after 28.9 °C 28 % 44 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 46
20 Oct after 29.8 °C 24 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
21 Oct after 30.4 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
22 Oct after 32.3 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 46
23 Oct after 31.7 °C 30 % 42 km/h 3.1 mm Moderate 20

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Sept 2022
After · 22 Oct 2022

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 · 824Every 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 Mangwe fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 6 October 2022 and 15 October 2022: 10 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 23,606 hectares (236.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Mangwe (18,190 ha, 3.2 %); Matobo (4,376 ha, 0.6 %); Bulilima (1,091 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.0 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 61 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 70, class Very 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

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.