Umguza fire, 18 October 2026 Umguza
The fire started on 18 October 2026 in Umguza, Zimbabwe, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,434 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 88th largest in Matabeleland North since 2016 (of 484 with a page). Number 29 in Zimbabwe in 2026, of 370.
Is it still active?
Satellites detected fire on 23 Oct 2026, 12:34 UTC. Everything suggests it is still burning. Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
- Burnt area
- 4,434ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 6days
- 18 Oct 2026 – 23 Oct 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 18 Oct
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 125
- in a single hotspot: 45 MW
- Danger at start
- 38
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 1.7GW
- 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.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
26% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 496 ha in 2017, 513 ha in 2019, 1,085 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,167 ha that had burned before.
- 1,085 ha Umguza fire, October 2022 6,867 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 513 ha Umguza fire, August 2019 4,360 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 443 ha Umguza fire, September 2017 1,006 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 35 ha Umguza fire, October 2017 7,141 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 19 ha Umguza fire, September 2017 1,200 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Umguza where it started4,454 ha reached on 18 Oct0.7 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18 Oct | 34.0 °C | 18 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 19 Oct | 35.3 °C | 15 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
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 17 October 2026 the air beside the fire reached 30 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
- 6,867 haUmguza7 October 2022 · 11 days · 2 km away
- 7,141 haUmguza15 October 2017 · 4 days · 10 km away
- 5,958 haUmguza12 September 2017 · 6 days · 13 km away
- 5,380 haUmguza20 September 2019 · 5 days · 30 km away
- 8,255 haUmguzaOctober 2021 · 5 days · 33 km away
- 10,329 haUmguza19 September 2019 · 5 days · 34 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Umguza fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 18 October 2026 to 23 October 2026 (6 days). The perimeter dates it from 18 October 2026 to 21 October 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 4,434 hectares (44.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Umguza (4,454 ha, 0.7 %).
- Is the Umguza fire still active?
- Yes: satellites detected fire on 23 Oct 2026, 12:34 UTC. Check the emergency service for the official status.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.3 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, class Very 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.
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.