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Chibombo fire, October 2020 Chibombo, Ngabwe

Out · last detection 2 Nov 2020, 11:12 UTC

The fire started on 27 October 2020 in Chibombo, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,083 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 120th largest in Central since 2016 (of 401 with a page). Number 72 in Zambia in 2020, of 229.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Chibombo · 2019Chibombo · 2024Chibombo · 2025Ngabwe · 2026

Burnt area
6,083ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
27 Oct 2020 – 2 Nov 2020
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
27 Oct
2020
Heat detections
235
in a single hotspot: 150 MW
Danger at start
47
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
581MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

2 Nov 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Oct2 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

27 Oct 2020 · 118 MW · 7 28 Oct 2020 · 515 MW · 42 29 Oct 2020 · 767 MW · 50 30 Oct 2020 · 619 MW · 38 31 Oct 2020 · 687 MW · 25 1 Nov 2020 · 888 MW · 38 2 Nov 2020 · 476 MW · 35
27 Oct 28 Oct 29 Oct 30 Oct 31 Oct 1 Nov 2 Nov

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
50km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 14 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 3 Nov.

This area had burned before

67% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,440 ha in 2016, 3,397 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,052 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 3.8% of the area of London (61 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Chibombo where it started
    4,692 ha reached on 27 Oct
    0.6 %
  2. Ngabwe
    1,420 ha reached on 27 Oct
    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)
27 Oct 33.4 °C 23 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
28 Oct 33.8 °C 18 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
29 Oct 33.7 °C 24 % 45 km/h 0.4 mm Very high 47
30 Oct 34.6 °C 19 % 50 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 49
31 Oct 33.4 °C 17 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
1 Nov 32.1 °C 27 % 42 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 43
2 Nov 32.0 °C 28 % 39 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 40
3 Nov after 33.8 °C 26 % 38 km/h 1.0 mm High 33

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 20 Oct 2020
After · 9 Nov 2020

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 · 235Every 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 Chibombo fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 27 October 2020 and 2 November 2020: 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 6,083 hectares (60.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Chibombo (4,692 ha, 0.6 %); Ngabwe (1,420 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.6 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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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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. 235 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.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.