How long did the Zvimba fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 14 September 2026 to 19 September 2026 (6 days). The perimeter dates it from 15 September 2026 to 17 September 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 1,027 hectares (10.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Zvimba (1,031 ha, 0.2 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 31.2 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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.

ZW · Zimbabwe · 2026-09-14 → 2026-09-19

Zvimba fire, 14 September 2026 Zvimba

Out · last detection 17 Sept 2026, 11:06 UTC

The fire started on 14 September 2026 in Zvimba, Zimbabwe, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,027 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 769th largest in Mashonaland West since 2016 (of 823 with a page). Number 351 in Zimbabwe in 2026, of 377.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Zvimba · 2017 Zvimba · 2016 Makonde · 2026 Makonde · 2026

Burnt area: 1,027ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 6days; 14 Sept 2026 – 19 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 14 Sept; 2026
Heat detections: 20; in a single hotspot: 88 MW
Danger at start: 38; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 138MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Sept19 Sept

Play back 17 Sept 2026

How it evolved, day by day

14 Sept 15 Sept 16 Sept 17 Sept

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

51km/h · peak gust

23%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

4% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 7 ha in 2016, 37 ha in 2017.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 0.6% of the area of London (10 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

Zvimba where it started

1,031 ha reached on 14 Sept

0.2 %

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)
14 Sept	29.7 °C	25 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
15 Sept	29.5 °C	29 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
16 Sept	31.2 °C	25 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
17 Sept	30.8 °C	23 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
18 Sept	29.3 °C	29 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
19 Sept	27.7 °C	33 %	51 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
20 Sept after	27.8 °C	32 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
21 Sept after	28.6 °C	32 %	39 km/h	0.1 mm	High 38
22 Sept after	29.0 °C	32 %	35 km/h	0.1 mm	High 36
23 Sept after	29.3 °C	31 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
24 Sept after	30.3 °C	27 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
25 Sept after	28.8 °C	24 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
26 Sept after	29.4 °C	23 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
27 Sept after	31.8 °C	24 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
28 Sept after	33.9 °C	24 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
29 Sept after	30.4 °C	35 %	55 km/h	0.4 mm	Very high 46

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 7 Sept 2026

After · 26 Sept 2026

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 17 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 62 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 50: 3.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak62 µg/m³

Days over the guideline9 days

PM1065 µg/m³

Optical depth0.88

WHO 15

1213141516171819202122

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 · 20Every 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 Zvimba fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 14 September 2026 to 19 September 2026 (6 days). The perimeter dates it from 15 September 2026 to 17 September 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 1,027 hectares (10.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Zvimba (1,031 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 31.2 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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

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?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy.

How we know this

Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 15 September 2026 to 17 September 2026. 20 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
We have not matched this page with any official record.
Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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