Chembe fire, August 2022 Chembe
The fire started on 5 August 2022 in Chembe, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,274 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 319th largest in Luapula since 2016 (of 533 with a page). Number 129 in Zambia in 2022, of 235.
The power measured by the satellite is low (26.3 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Chembe · 2018Chembe · 2020Chembe · 2016Chembe · 2026
- Burnt area
- 4,274ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 7days
- 5 Aug 2022 – 11 Aug 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 5 Aug
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 23
- in a single hotspot: 26 MW
- Danger at start
- 39
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 81MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
11 Aug 2022 · 81 MW · 11
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
99% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,682 ha in 2016, 1,522 ha in 2017, 3,121 ha in 2018, 2,109 ha in 2019, 3,018 ha in 2020, 1,698 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,230 ha that had burned before.
- 3,121 ha Chembe fire, July 2018 20,282 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,018 ha Chembe fire, August 2020 12,566 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,476 ha Chembe fire, July 2016 12,378 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Chembe where it started4,301 ha reached on 11 Aug2.0 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 Aug | 26.5 °C | 27 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 6 Aug | 26.4 °C | 28 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 7 Aug | 26.1 °C | 27 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 8 Aug | 26.9 °C | 27 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 9 Aug | 27.1 °C | 22 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 10 Aug | 27.3 °C | 23 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 11 Aug | 26.2 °C | 26 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 12 Aug after | 26.5 °C | 25 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 13 Aug after | 26.9 °C | 30 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 14 Aug after | 29.4 °C | 22 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 15 Aug after | 29.3 °C | 20 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 16 Aug after | 28.0 °C | 25 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 17 Aug after | 26.8 °C | 29 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 18 Aug after | 28.2 °C | 29 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 19 Aug after | 30.3 °C | 21 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 20 Aug after | 30.3 °C | 21 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 21 Aug after | 29.7 °C | 25 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · 23Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Chembe fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 August 2022 and 11 August 2022: 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 4,274 hectares (42.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Chembe (4,301 ha, 2.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 27.3 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, 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.
Report an error
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 23 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.
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.