Matobo fire, August 2024 Matobo
The fire started on 14 August 2024 in Matobo, Zimbabwe, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,180 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 54th largest in Matabeleland South since 2016 (of 203 with a page). Number 21 in Zimbabwe in 2024, of 88.
- Burnt area
- 2,180ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 5days
- 14 Aug 2024 – 18 Aug 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 14 Aug
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 125
- in a single hotspot: 94 MW
- Energy released
- 1.6GW
- 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
78% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 998 ha in 2018, 730 ha in 2019, 339 ha in 2021, 41 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,697 ha that had burned before.
- 996 ha Matobo fire, August 2018 3,345 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 730 ha Matobo fire, September 2019 3,821 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 339 ha Matobo fire, September 2021 1,221 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 25 ha Matobo fire, August 2023 1,607 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 16 ha Matobo fire, July 2023 1,742 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2 ha Matobo fire, October 2018 1,220 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Matobo where it started2,184 ha reached on 13 Aug0.3 %
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 14 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 15 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO 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 · 125Every 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 Matobo fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 14 August 2024 and 18 August 2024: 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 2,180 hectares (21.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Matobo (2,184 ha, 0.3 %).
- 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.