Fire near Matabeleland septentrional (ZW)

19.79°S, 28.61°E · first detected on 17 October at 13:06

What the satellites measured

This fire was tracked from 17 October at 13:06 to 20 October at 01:20, that is 3 days, through 99 satellite detections. The detected extent reaches 1,564 ha.

Detected extent: 1,564 ha
Cumulative power: 550 MW
Peak power, one pixel: 28 MW
VIIRS and MODIS detections: 99
Estimated emissions: 1.1 kt of carbon; Carbon burnt in the 0.1 degree cells (about 10 km) around the fire, from 17 October 2026 to 19 October 2026. An order-of-magnitude estimate from GFAS (ECMWF, Copernicus CAMS): it also counts neighbouring fires in the same cell. Contains modified Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service information (2026).

These four figures cover the polar orbits alone, the ones that measure an area. The pass table below also counts geostationary detections, more frequent but too coarse for geometry, and its power column sums a whole pass where the peak above is that of a single pixel.

“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 5 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
20 October at 01:20	4 MW	4	N21
20 October at 00:35	10 MW	4	N20
19 October at 19:49	28 MW	1	Met10
19 October at 19:49	16 MW	1	Met9
19 October at 17:12	73 MW	4	Met12
19 October at 17:04	78 MW	2	Met10
19 October at 17:04	35 MW	1	Met9
19 October at 17:02	100 MW	4	Met12
19 October at 16:52	10 MW	1	Met12
19 October at 16:49	26 MW	1	Met9
19 October at 16:42	20 MW	1	Met12
19 October at 16:22	11 MW	1	Met12
19 October at 16:12	41 MW	3	Met12
19 October at 16:04	75 MW	2	Met10
19 October at 16:02	46 MW	2	Met12
19 October at 15:59	22 MW	2	Aqua
19 October at 15:52	36 MW	3	Met12
19 October at 15:42	37 MW	3	Met12
19 October at 15:34	49 MW	1	Met9
19 October at 15:34	99 MW	2	Met10
19 October at 15:32	78 MW	4	Met12
19 October at 15:22	93 MW	3	Met12
19 October at 15:04	36 MW	1	Met9
19 October at 15:04	41 MW	1	Met10
19 October at 15:02	11 MW	1	Met12
19 October at 14:52	31 MW	2	Met12
19 October at 14:46	96 MW	8	N
19 October at 14:34	235 MW	3	Met9
19 October at 14:32	52 MW	2	Met12
19 October at 14:12	68 MW	2	Met12
19 October at 14:08	72 MW	7	N21
19 October at 14:02	11 MW	1	Met12
19 October at 13:23	71 MW	6	N20
19 October at 13:22	21 MW	1	Met12
19 October at 13:04	29 MW	3	N
19 October at 12:52	12 MW	1	Met12
19 October at 12:42	22 MW	1	Met12
19 October at 12:22	14 MW	1	Met12
19 October at 01:37	3 MW	3	N21
19 October at 00:54	10 MW	4	N20
19 October at 00:35	2 MW	1	N
18 October at 14:27	20 MW	3	N21
18 October at 13:45	42 MW	5	N20
18 October at 13:23	15 MW	1	N
18 October at 12:45	27 MW	2	N21
18 October at 01:58	13 MW	8	N21
18 October at 01:14	27 MW	16	N20
18 October at 00:54	14 MW	11	N
17 October at 20:53	23 MW	3	Terra
17 October at 14:02	18 MW	4	N20
17 October at 13:42	14 MW	2	N
17 October at 13:06	18 MW	2	N21

8 other fires near Matabeleland septentrional (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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