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Chilubi fire, 16 September 2019 Chilubi, Luwingu

Out · last detection 21 Sept 2019, 12:04 UTC

The fire started on 16 September 2019 in Chilubi, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,727 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 269th largest in Northern since 2016 (of 628 with a page). Number 103 in Zambia in 2019, of 243.

Burnt area
4,727ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
16 Sept 2019 – 21 Sept 2019
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
16 Sept
2019
Heat detections
130
in a single hotspot: 58 MW
Danger at start
50
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
1.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

21 Sept 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Sept21 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

161718192021

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
42km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 14.9 mm on 1 Oct.

This area had burned before

44% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 149 ha in 2016, 1,317 ha in 2017, 1,530 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,069 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Chilubi where it started
    3,688 ha reached on 11 Sept
    0.7 %
  2. Luwingu
    1,069 ha reached on 12 Sept
    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)
16 Sept 32.0 °C 22 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
17 Sept 31.5 °C 23 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
18 Sept 31.8 °C 19 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
19 Sept 32.1 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
20 Sept 32.2 °C 20 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
21 Sept 32.2 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
22 Sept after 32.9 °C 19 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
23 Sept after 34.2 °C 19 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
24 Sept after 33.6 °C 16 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
25 Sept after 31.9 °C 21 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
26 Sept after 27.2 °C 33 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
27 Sept after 28.8 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
28 Sept after 31.3 °C 21 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
29 Sept after 32.5 °C 22 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
30 Sept after 32.4 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 40
1 Oct after 30.9 °C 41 % 25 km/h 14.9 mm Very low 5

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Sept 2019
After · 28 Sept 2019

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 · 130Every 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 16 September 2019 and 21 September 2019: 6 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 4,727 hectares (47.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Chilubi (3,688 ha, 0.7 %); Luwingu (1,069 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.2 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, 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.