Fire near Manicaland (ZW)

18.98°S, 32.54°E

What the satellites measured

This fire is not in the last thirty days of the fire list, but detections remain around this point: the curve below is rebuilt from the raw pixels, which are kept for a hundred days.

“Detected extent” is not “burned area”: it is the union of the ground footprints of the satellite pixels, and a pixel counts in full (375 m for VIIRS, 1 km for MODIS) even when only a forest edge is burning. Compared with press figures it is in practice one and a half to three times the area reported. Detections taken at the edge of the scan swath, too coarse to measure anything at all, are excluded. These figures come from thermal detection and are not an official assessment: only the emergency services and the competent authorities are authoritative.

Replay how the fire spread

The map is framed on this fire's footprint and loads only its detections. The timeline below covers the period in which satellites saw it, from the first to the last detection, with twelve hours before and twenty-four after; the ticks on the bar mark the emergency services' announcements that fall within it. The cursor opens on the most powerful pass, and playback replays the whole fire in about thirty seconds. “1 h” shows what is burning within an hour of the chosen moment : the map then follows the power curve below and empties when it falls. “24 h” stacks twenty-four hours : a fire stays visible between two satellite passes, which come two to four times a day. Both are true, but they say different things.

How the radiative power evolved

One point per satellite pass: the sum of the fire radiative power measured over the fire. This is the curve that says whether the fire eased off or picked up again, which no cumulative figure shows. The window covers 30 days; beyond that, clustering would merge two successive fires in the same place.

Fire dynamics

Loading history…

Satellite passes in detail

Pass	Power summed over the pass	Detections	Sensor
22 October at 16:22	17 MW	1	Met12
22 October at 16:14	44 MW	1	Aqua
22 October at 16:12	42 MW	1	Met12
22 October at 16:04	68 MW	2	Met9
22 October at 16:04	47 MW	1	Met10
22 October at 16:02	41 MW	2	Met12
22 October at 15:52	20 MW	1	Met12
22 October at 14:32	20 MW	1	Met12
22 October at 14:08	5 MW	2	N20
22 October at 13:49	18 MW	1	N
22 October at 13:13	62 MW	2	N21
22 October at 13:12	23 MW	1	Met12
22 October at 13:02	33 MW	1	Met12
22 October at 08:42	11 MW	1	Met12
22 October at 08:34	107 MW	2	Met10
22 October at 08:33	102 MW	2	Met9
22 October at 08:32	73 MW	3	Met12
21 October at 15:42	53 MW	1	Met12
21 October at 15:40	110 MW	2	Aqua
21 October at 14:08	3 MW	1	N
21 October at 09:03	87 MW	1	Met9
21 October at 09:02	132 MW	4	Met12
21 October at 08:42	74 MW	3	Met12
21 October at 08:32	85 MW	3	Met12
20 October at 00:35	2 MW	1	N20
20 October at 00:16	4 MW	2	N
19 October at 13:06	17 MW	3	N
18 October at 13:45	11 MW	2	N20
18 October at 13:23	4 MW	1	N
18 October at 12:45	3 MW	1	N21
17 October at 14:02	15 MW	3	N20
17 October at 13:42	10 MW	3	N
17 October at 13:06	5 MW	2	N21
16 October at 00:54	1 MW	1	N21
15 October at 13:45	13 MW	2	N21
14 October at 14:02	6 MW	2	N21
14 October at 13:17	6 MW	1	N20
13 October at 14:21	11 MW	1	N21
13 October at 13:38	3 MW	1	N20
12 October at 13:00	151 MW	5	N21
11 October at 15:53	27 MW	3	Aqua
11 October at 14:14	66 MW	11	N20
11 October at 13:55	174 MW	7	N
11 October at 13:17	58 MW	8	N21
10 October at 13:38	4 MW	1	N21
9 October at 13:55	7 MW	1	N21
9 October at 13:10	17 MW	3	N20
9 October at 12:51	7 MW	2	N
8 October at 13:32	37 MW	7	N20
8 October at 13:13	22 MW	3	N
7 October at 13:30	8 MW	2	N
29 September at 13:45	38 MW	3	N21
29 September at 13:00	52 MW	5	N20
29 September at 08:29	9 MW	1	Terra
28 September at 15:48	98 MW	9	Aqua
28 September at 14:02	76 MW	8	N21
28 September at 13:17	147 MW	9	N20
28 September at 01:31	7 MW	3	N21
28 September at 00:48	7 MW	5	N20
28 September at 00:29	2 MW	1	N
27 September at 15:12	307 MW	4	Aqua
27 September at 14:21	38 MW	4	N21
27 September at 13:38	194 MW	19	N20
27 September at 13:17	131 MW	23	N
27 September at 12:41	161 MW	8	N21
27 September at 08:50	24 MW	1	Terra
27 September at 03:02	12 MW	1	Aqua
27 September at 01:50	76 MW	8	N21
27 September at 01:05	70 MW	12	N20
27 September at 00:46	21 MW	7	N
27 September at 00:10	17 MW	9	N21
26 September at 13:55	6 MW	1	N20
26 September at 13:36	7 MW	2	N
26 September at 13:00	25 MW	1	N21
25 September at 14:14	3 MW	1	N20
25 September at 13:55	7 MW	1	N
25 September at 13:17	3 MW	1	N21
25 September at 01:44	2 MW	2	N20
25 September at 01:24	3 MW	3	N
25 September at 00:48	6 MW	5	N21
24 September at 14:14	12 MW	4	N
24 September at 13:38	10 MW	2	N21
24 September at 01:07	1 MW	1	N21

8 other fires near Manicaland (ZW)

Separate fires, apart in time or in space, not pieces of this one. A single municipality can have several over one summer, and a forest massif often covers more than a hundred square kilometres.

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