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Chilubi fire, 5 September 2023 Chilubi

Out · last detection 13 Sept 2023, 11:21 UTC

The fire started on 5 September 2023 in Chilubi, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,470 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 159th largest in Northern since 2016 (of 628 with a page). Number 42 in Zambia in 2023, of 165.

Burnt area
6,470ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
5 Sept 2023 – 13 Sept 2023
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
5 Sept
2023
Heat detections
210
in a single hotspot: 67 MW
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

13 Sept 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Sept13 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

5678910111213

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
53km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

86% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,529 ha in 2016, 2,846 ha in 2017, 1,741 ha in 2018, 3,110 ha in 2019, 3,285 ha in 2020, 83 ha in 2021, 2,064 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,581 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Chilubi where it started
    6,509 ha reached on 3 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)
5 Sept 30.7 °C 25 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
6 Sept 31.8 °C 25 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
7 Sept 32.0 °C 22 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
8 Sept 31.5 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
9 Sept 30.8 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
10 Sept 30.4 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
11 Sept 32.0 °C 27 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
12 Sept 33.2 °C 21 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
13 Sept 30.5 °C 29 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
14 Sept after 28.8 °C 32 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
15 Sept after 30.7 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
16 Sept after 32.2 °C 21 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
17 Sept after 32.9 °C 20 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
18 Sept after 33.1 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
19 Sept after 32.3 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
20 Sept after 32.8 °C 18 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
21 Sept after 33.8 °C 13 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
22 Sept after 32.7 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
23 Sept after 32.8 °C 19 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Aug 2023
After · 20 Sept 2023

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 · 210Every 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 5 September 2023 and 13 September 2023: 9 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 6,470 hectares (64.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Chilubi (6,509 ha, 1.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.2 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, 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.