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Chipili fire, 14 August 2022 Chipili

Out · last detection 26 Aug 2022, 11:02 UTC

The fire started on 14 August 2022 in Chipili, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 19,915 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 78th largest in Luapula since 2016 (of 533 with a page). Number 12 in Zambia in 2022, of 235.

Burnt area
19,915ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
14 Aug 2022 – 25 Aug 2022
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
14 Aug
2022
Heat detections
995
in a single hotspot: 121 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Energy released
9.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

26 Aug 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Aug25 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

14151617181920212223242526

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
59km/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

99% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 11,659 ha in 2016, 14,645 ha in 2017, 9,716 ha in 2018, 12,067 ha in 2019, 10,990 ha in 2020, 11,794 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 19,637 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Chipili where it started
    20,036 ha reached on 11 Aug
    4.7 %

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)
14 Aug 30.0 °C 21 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
15 Aug 29.7 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
16 Aug 28.2 °C 23 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
17 Aug 27.4 °C 26 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
18 Aug 29.2 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
19 Aug 31.1 °C 20 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
20 Aug 30.5 °C 22 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
21 Aug 30.2 °C 24 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
22 Aug 27.4 °C 28 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
23 Aug 27.4 °C 28 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
24 Aug 27.5 °C 32 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
25 Aug 27.6 °C 26 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
26 Aug after 28.2 °C 26 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
27 Aug after 29.2 °C 20 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
28 Aug after 29.5 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
29 Aug after 29.1 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
30 Aug after 28.7 °C 23 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
31 Aug after 27.5 °C 29 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
1 Sept after 25.6 °C 36 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
2 Sept after 27.0 °C 31 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
3 Sept after 29.0 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
4 Sept after 30.4 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 38

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Aug 2022
After · 1 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 · 995Every 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 14 August 2022 and 25 August 2022: 12 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 19,915 hectares (199.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Chipili (20,036 ha, 4.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.1 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 59 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, 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.