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Mbire fire, 2 October 2018 Mbire

Out · last detection 9 Oct 2018, 23:18 UTC

The fire started on 2 October 2018 in Mbire, Zimbabwe, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,090 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 8th largest in Mashonaland Central since 2016 (of 334 with a page). Number 26 in Zimbabwe in 2018, of 265.

Burnt area
4,090ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
2 Oct 2018 – 8 Oct 2018
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
2 Oct
2018
Heat detections
124
in a single hotspot: 40 MW
Danger at start
43
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
645MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

9 Oct 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Oct8 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

23456789

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
51km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Mbire where it started
    4,118 ha reached on 2 Oct
    0.9 %

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)
2 Oct 33.5 °C 25 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
3 Oct 36.1 °C 23 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
4 Oct 36.8 °C 21 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
5 Oct 32.5 °C 32 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
6 Oct 33.3 °C 26 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
7 Oct 34.7 °C 14 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
8 Oct 34.2 °C 15 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
9 Oct after 33.9 °C 16 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
10 Oct after 34.7 °C 23 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
11 Oct after 36.2 °C 22 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
12 Oct after 38.5 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
13 Oct after 38.6 °C 19 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
14 Oct after 35.6 °C 29 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
15 Oct after 39.2 °C 24 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
16 Oct after 36.9 °C 24 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
17 Oct after 38.1 °C 27 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
18 Oct after 41.0 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Sept 2018
After · 15 Oct 2018

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 · 124Every 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 Mbire fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 2 October 2018 and 8 October 2018: 7 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 4,090 hectares (40.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mbire (4,118 ha, 0.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.8 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, 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

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.