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Chilubi fire, September 2020 Chilubi

Out · last detection 12 Sept 2020, 23:16 UTC

The fire started on 8 September 2020 in Chilubi, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,376 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 164th largest in Northern since 2016 (of 628 with a page). Number 67 in Zambia in 2020, of 229.

Burnt area
6,376ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
8 Sept 2020 – 12 Sept 2020
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
8 Sept
2020
Heat detections
193
in a single hotspot: 120 MW
Danger at start
46
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

12 Sept 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Sept12 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

89101112

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

The weather it burned in

29°high
44km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

93% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,344 ha in 2016, 3,475 ha in 2017, 1,398 ha in 2018, 3,452 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,948 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Chilubi where it started
    6,418 ha reached on 6 Sept
    1.2 %

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)
8 Sept 28.9 °C 19 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
9 Sept 27.6 °C 22 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
10 Sept 28.2 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
11 Sept 29.2 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
12 Sept 29.0 °C 26 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
13 Sept after 29.4 °C 31 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
14 Sept after 31.1 °C 23 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
15 Sept after 32.4 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
16 Sept after 32.3 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
17 Sept after 33.9 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
18 Sept after 32.3 °C 22 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
19 Sept after 31.8 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
20 Sept after 32.2 °C 21 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
21 Sept after 32.7 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
22 Sept after 32.5 °C 18 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Sept 2020
After · 19 Sept 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 · 193Every 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 8 September 2020 and 12 September 2020: 5 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 6,376 hectares (63.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Chilubi (6,418 ha, 1.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.2 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 44 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.