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Chembe fire, 7 August 2018 Chembe

Out · last detection 12 Aug 2018, 23:04 UTC

The fire started on 7 August 2018 in Chembe, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,681 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 392th largest in Luapula since 2016 (of 533 with a page). Number 132 in Zambia in 2018, of 204.

Burnt area
3,681ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
7 Aug 2018 – 11 Aug 2018
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
7 Aug
2018
Heat detections
116
in a single hotspot: 50 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

12 Aug 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Aug11 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

789101112

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

The weather it burned in

30°high
42km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

84% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,950 ha in 2016, 2,249 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,094 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Chembe where it started
    3,702 ha reached on 6 Aug
    1.7 %

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)
7 Aug 28.9 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
8 Aug 29.5 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
9 Aug 29.6 °C 15 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
10 Aug 28.5 °C 21 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
11 Aug 28.6 °C 19 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
12 Aug after 27.0 °C 22 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
13 Aug after 27.0 °C 28 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
14 Aug after 26.8 °C 26 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
15 Aug after 27.3 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
16 Aug after 27.1 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
17 Aug after 27.3 °C 22 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
18 Aug after 27.6 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
19 Aug after 26.9 °C 22 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
20 Aug after 26.7 °C 27 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
21 Aug after 26.8 °C 26 % 38 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.

Before · 31 Jul 2018
After · 18 Aug 2018

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 · 116Every 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 Chembe fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 7 August 2018 and 11 August 2018: 5 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 3,681 hectares (36.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Chembe (3,702 ha, 1.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.6 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, class Very high.
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.