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Chilubi fire, September 2018 Chilubi

Out · last detection 27 Sept 2018, 23:42 UTC

The fire started on 24 September 2018 in Chilubi, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,187 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 568th largest in Northern since 2016 (of 628 with a page). Number 185 in Zambia in 2018, of 204.

Burnt area
3,187ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
24 Sept 2018 – 26 Sept 2018
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
24 Sept
2018
Heat detections
120
in a single hotspot: 91 MW
Danger at start
46
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

27 Sept 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Sept26 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

24252627

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
38km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 13 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 4 Oct.

This area had burned before

29% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 700 ha in 2016, 308 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 933 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Chilubi where it started
    3,205 ha reached on 23 Sept
    0.6 %

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)
24 Sept 31.7 °C 25 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
25 Sept 32.0 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
26 Sept 33.2 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
27 Sept after 33.2 °C 21 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
28 Sept after 32.9 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
29 Sept after 33.5 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
30 Sept after 31.4 °C 21 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
1 Oct after 29.4 °C 27 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
2 Oct after 29.5 °C 28 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
3 Oct after 32.1 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
4 Oct after 32.7 °C 26 % 40 km/h 1.1 mm High 32

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 17 Sept 2018
After · 3 Oct 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 · 120Every 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 24 September 2018 and 26 September 2018: 3 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 3,187 hectares (31.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Chilubi (3,205 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.2 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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.