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Chipili fire, August 2020 Chipili

Out · last detection 25 Aug 2020, 11:07 UTC

The fire started on 11 August 2020 in Chipili, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 26,924 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 48th largest in Luapula since 2016 (of 533 with a page). Number 11 in Zambia in 2020, of 229.

Burnt area
26,924ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
14days
11 Aug 2020 – 24 Aug 2020
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
11 Aug
2020
Heat detections
1,161
in a single hotspot: 117 MW
Danger at start
38
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
11.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

25 Aug 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Aug24 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

111213141516171819202122232425

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
48km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

95% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 16,965 ha in 2016, 14,870 ha in 2017, 10,720 ha in 2018, 15,400 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 25,568 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Chipili where it started
    27,085 ha reached on 11 Aug
    6.3 %

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 Aug 27.7 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
12 Aug 27.8 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
13 Aug 28.4 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
14 Aug 28.3 °C 18 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
15 Aug 27.5 °C 26 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
16 Aug 28.8 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
17 Aug 29.9 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
18 Aug 31.0 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
19 Aug 30.9 °C 21 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
20 Aug 29.7 °C 28 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
21 Aug 29.1 °C 24 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
22 Aug 27.9 °C 27 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
23 Aug 27.2 °C 32 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
24 Aug 26.4 °C 38 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
25 Aug after 29.3 °C 33 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
26 Aug after 30.2 °C 29 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
27 Aug after 30.0 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
28 Aug after 30.9 °C 28 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
29 Aug after 31.8 °C 21 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
30 Aug after 32.5 °C 24 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
31 Aug after 32.7 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
1 Sept after 31.6 °C 20 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
2 Sept after 29.1 °C 22 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
3 Sept after 29.0 °C 23 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Aug 2020
After · 31 Aug 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 · 1,161Every 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 11 August 2020 and 24 August 2020: 14 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 26,924 hectares (269.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Chipili (27,085 ha, 6.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.0 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 48 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.