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Chilubi fire, August 2022 Chilubi

Out · last detection 16 Aug 2022, 23:36 UTC

The fire started on 9 August 2022 in Chilubi, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,189 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 566th largest in Northern since 2016 (of 628 with a page). Number 203 in Zambia in 2022, of 235.

Burnt area
3,189ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
9 Aug 2022 – 16 Aug 2022
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
9 Aug
2022
Heat detections
90
in a single hotspot: 62 MW
Danger at start
36
High · FWI index
Energy released
964MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

16 Aug 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Aug16 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

111213141516

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
21%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,014 ha in 2016, 1,186 ha in 2017, 1,589 ha in 2018, 1,314 ha in 2019, 2,363 ha in 2020, 2,580 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,193 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Chilubi where it started
    3,207 ha reached on 11 Aug
    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)
9 Aug 27.7 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
10 Aug 28.1 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
11 Aug 27.2 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
12 Aug 27.3 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
13 Aug 27.5 °C 28 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
14 Aug 29.3 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
15 Aug 29.4 °C 21 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
16 Aug 28.5 °C 24 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
17 Aug after 27.7 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
18 Aug after 29.0 °C 25 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
19 Aug after 30.6 °C 23 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
20 Aug after 30.6 °C 25 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
21 Aug after 30.9 °C 22 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
22 Aug after 26.6 °C 31 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
23 Aug after 27.2 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
24 Aug after 28.0 °C 31 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
25 Aug after 27.8 °C 26 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
26 Aug after 28.1 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 Aug 2022
After · 23 Aug 2022

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 · 90Every 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 9 August 2022 and 16 August 2022: 8 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 3,189 hectares (31.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Chilubi (3,207 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.4 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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.