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Chama fire, September 2023 Chama

Out · last detection 5 Oct 2023, 11:07 UTC

The fire started on 29 September 2023 in Chama, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,686 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 366th largest in Muchinga since 2016 (of 513 with a page). Number 108 in Zambia in 2023, of 165.

Burnt area
3,686ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
29 Sept 2023 – 5 Oct 2023
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
29 Sept
2023
Heat detections
106
in a single hotspot: 90 MW
Danger at start
54
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
1.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

5 Oct 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Sept5 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

29301245

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

37°high
54km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

66% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 33 ha in 2017, 806 ha in 2018, 1,482 ha in 2021, 753 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,441 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Chama where it started
    3,706 ha reached on 29 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)
29 Sept 35.6 °C 25 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
30 Sept 35.9 °C 21 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
1 Oct 37.0 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
2 Oct 37.1 °C 16 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
3 Oct 33.2 °C 28 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
4 Oct 32.4 °C 34 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
5 Oct 34.8 °C 26 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
6 Oct after 36.0 °C 24 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
7 Oct after 36.4 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
8 Oct after 37.5 °C 15 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
9 Oct after 38.3 °C 16 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
10 Oct after 37.2 °C 20 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
11 Oct after 36.8 °C 20 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
12 Oct after 37.5 °C 18 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
13 Oct after 39.2 °C 15 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
14 Oct after 40.1 °C 16 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
15 Oct after 39.1 °C 13 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Sept 2023
After · 12 Oct 2023

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 106Every 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Zambia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Chama fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 29 September 2023 and 5 October 2023: 7 days 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 3,686 hectares (36.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Chama (3,706 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.1 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 65, class Extreme.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Zambia (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.

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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 4.0 (CC BY 4.0)). 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.