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Chipili fire, 24 August 2018 Chipili, Lupososhi

Out · last detection 7 Sept 2018, 12:10 UTC

The fire started on 24 August 2018 in Chipili, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 20,116 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 77th largest in Luapula since 2016 (of 533 with a page). Number 15 in Zambia in 2018, of 204.

Burnt area
20,116ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
15days
24 Aug 2018 – 7 Sept 2018
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
24 Aug
2018
Heat detections
819
in a single hotspot: 176 MW
Danger at start
38
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
7.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

7 Sept 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Aug7 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

24252627282930311234567

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
55km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.3 mm on 9 Sept.

This area had burned before

91% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 15,715 ha in 2016, 13,758 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 18,320 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Chipili where it started
    18,529 ha reached on 17 Aug
    4.3 %
  2. Lupososhi
    1,728 ha reached on 22 Aug
    0.4 %

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)
24 Aug 29.0 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
25 Aug 28.8 °C 25 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
26 Aug 29.2 °C 26 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
27 Aug 29.2 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
28 Aug 28.7 °C 19 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
29 Aug 27.4 °C 26 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
30 Aug 27.1 °C 29 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
31 Aug 27.6 °C 25 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
1 Sept 28.7 °C 26 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
2 Sept 29.5 °C 24 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
3 Sept 30.5 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
4 Sept 30.0 °C 22 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
5 Sept 30.2 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
6 Sept 30.3 °C 27 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
7 Sept 30.8 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
8 Sept after 30.2 °C 27 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
9 Sept after 30.2 °C 37 % 29 km/h 2.3 mm Moderate 13

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 17 Aug 2018
After · 14 Sept 2018

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 · 819Every 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 Chipili fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 24 August 2018 and 7 September 2018: 15 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 20,116 hectares (201.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Chipili (18,529 ha, 4.3 %); Lupososhi (1,728 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.8 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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.