Skip to content
worldfires
ZM · Zambia · →

Chilubi fire, 11 September 2022 Chilubi

Out · last detection 17 Sept 2022, 10:49 UTC

The fire started on 11 September 2022 in Chilubi, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,512 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 85th largest in Northern since 2016 (of 628 with a page). Number 38 in Zambia in 2022, of 235.

Burnt area
9,512ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
11 Sept 2022 – 17 Sept 2022
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
11 Sept
2022
Heat detections
271
in a single hotspot: 56 MW
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
3.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

17 Sept 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Sept17 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

11121314151617

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
49km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

89% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,444 ha in 2016, 3,140 ha in 2017, 4,807 ha in 2018, 2,598 ha in 2019, 1,661 ha in 2020, 4,865 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 8,461 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Chilubi where it started
    9,567 ha reached on 11 Sept
    1.8 %

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)
11 Sept 30.2 °C 26 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
12 Sept 30.9 °C 28 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
13 Sept 30.3 °C 25 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
14 Sept 28.5 °C 28 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
15 Sept 29.0 °C 26 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
16 Sept 29.8 °C 25 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
17 Sept 30.1 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
18 Sept after 31.4 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
19 Sept after 32.8 °C 21 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
20 Sept after 33.6 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
21 Sept after 33.0 °C 18 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
22 Sept after 32.0 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
23 Sept after 32.3 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
24 Sept after 31.4 °C 16 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
25 Sept after 31.2 °C 22 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
26 Sept after 31.8 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
27 Sept after 32.5 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Sept 2022
After · 24 Sept 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 · 271Every 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 11 September 2022 and 17 September 2022: 7 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 9,512 hectares (95.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Chilubi (9,567 ha, 1.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.9 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy.

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.