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Chilubi fire, 7 October 2016 Chilubi

Out · last detection 10 Oct 2016, 11:39 UTC

The fire started on 7 October 2016 in Chilubi, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,633 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 451th largest in Northern since 2016 (of 628 with a page). Number 174 in Zambia in 2016, of 246.

Burnt area
3,633ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
7 Oct 2016 – 10 Oct 2016
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
7 Oct
2016
Heat detections
74
in a single hotspot: 59 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
951MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 Oct 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Oct10 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

78910

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
40km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Chilubi where it started
    3,654 ha reached on 7 Oct
    0.7 %

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 Oct 34.5 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
8 Oct 34.4 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
9 Oct 35.7 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
10 Oct 35.0 °C 12 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
11 Oct after 34.3 °C 17 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
12 Oct after 34.3 °C 17 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
13 Oct after 33.8 °C 18 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
14 Oct after 33.6 °C 17 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
15 Oct after 33.5 °C 17 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
16 Oct after 34.2 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
17 Oct after 35.2 °C 16 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
18 Oct after 34.8 °C 16 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
19 Oct after 33.2 °C 18 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
20 Oct after 32.9 °C 15 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 30 Sept 2016
After · 17 Oct 2016

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 · 74Every 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 Chilubi fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 7 October 2016 and 10 October 2016: 4 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 3,633 hectares (36.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Chilubi (3,654 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.7 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 57, 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.