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Mount Darwin fire, September 2026 Mount Darwin

Out · last detection 16 Sept 2026, 11:23 UTC

The fire started on 16 September 2026 in Mount Darwin, Zimbabwe, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,313 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 156th largest in Mashonaland Central since 2016 (of 334 with a page). Number 200 in Zimbabwe in 2026, of 377.

Burnt area
1,313ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
1day
16 Sept 2026 – 16 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
16 Sept
2026
Heat detections
16
in a single hotspot: 50 MW
Danger at start
36
High · FWI index
Energy released
242MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Sept16 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

16

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
36km/h · peak gust
27%lowest humidity

It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

55% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 727 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Mount Darwin where it started
    1,322 ha reached on 16 Sept
    0.3 %

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.

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)
16 Sept 30.9 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
17 Sept after 31.1 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
18 Sept after 28.7 °C 36 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
19 Sept after 28.1 °C 33 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
20 Sept after 28.3 °C 34 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
21 Sept after 27.9 °C 41 % 42 km/h 0.1 mm High 35
22 Sept after 28.9 °C 34 % 37 km/h 0.1 mm High 33
23 Sept after 28.9 °C 33 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
24 Sept after 29.5 °C 35 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
25 Sept after 27.8 °C 25 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
26 Sept after 29.2 °C 33 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Sept 2026
After · 23 Sept 2026

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 · Copernicus

On 17 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 47 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 37: 2.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak47 µg/m³
Days over the guideline5 days
PM1050 µg/m³
Optical depth0.92
141516171819
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 16Every 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 Mount Darwin fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 16 September 2026 and 16 September 2026: 1 day 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 1,313 hectares (13.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mount Darwin (1,322 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.9 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, class High.
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.