How long did the Mwenezi fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 October 2024 and 1 October 2024: 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 1,000 hectares (10.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Mwenezi (1,008 ha, 0.1 %).

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.

ZW · Zimbabwe · 2024-10-01 → 2024-10-01

Mwenezi fire, 1 October 2024 Mwenezi

Out · last detection 1 Oct 2024, 11:16 UTC

The fire started on 1 October 2024 in Mwenezi, Zimbabwe, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,000 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 96th largest in Masvingo since 2016 (of 96 with a page). Number 88 in Zimbabwe in 2024, of 88.

Burnt area: 1,000ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 1day; 1 Oct 2024 – 1 Oct 2024
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 1 Oct; 2024
Heat detections: 27; in a single hotspot: 56 MW
Energy released: 460MW; sum of detected power

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Oct1 Oct

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

58% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 577 ha in 2018.

577 ha Mwenezi fire, September 2018 5,401 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Mwenezi where it started

1,008 ha reached on 1 Oct

0.1 %

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.

↔

Before · 24 Sept 2024

After · 8 Oct 2024

Before After

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 29 September 2024 the air beside the fire reached 24 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 17: 1.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak24 µg/m³

Days over the guideline1 day

PM1035 µg/m³

Optical depth1.05

WHO 15

29301234

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 · 27Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Zimbabwe ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Mwenezi fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 October 2024 and 1 October 2024: 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 1,000 hectares (10.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Mwenezi (1,008 ha, 0.1 %).
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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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

What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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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.

Where it burned