Chipili fire, 26 July 2024 Chipili
The fire started on 26 July 2024 in Chipili, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 21,299 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 69th largest in Luapula since 2016 (of 533 with a page). Number 9 in Zambia in 2024, of 160.
- Burnt area
- 21,299ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 14days
- 26 Jul 2024 – 8 Aug 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 26 Jul
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 870
- in a single hotspot: 161 MW
- Danger at start
- 41
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 8.9GW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
98% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 10,395 ha in 2016, 12,553 ha in 2017, 8,922 ha in 2018, 8,938 ha in 2019, 9,253 ha in 2020, 9,017 ha in 2021, 9,750 ha in 2022, 6,915 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 20,858 ha that had burned before.
- 9,404 ha Chipili fire, August 2016 31,556 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 8,030 ha Chipili fire, August 2020 26,924 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,289 ha Chipili fire, August 2021 8,641 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,996 ha Chipili fire, August 2017 21,338 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,928 ha Chipili fire, August 2017 8,070 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,116 ha Chipili fire, August 2019 81,932 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,774 ha Chipili fire, August 2019 10,879 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,420 ha Chipili fire, August 2022 10,024 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Chipili where it started21,429 ha reached on 29 Jul5.0 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 26 Jul | 27.5 °C | 16 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 27 Jul | 27.4 °C | 17 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 28 Jul | 27.3 °C | 18 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 29 Jul | 28.7 °C | 17 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 30 Jul | 29.1 °C | 18 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 31 Jul | 28.5 °C | 19 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 1 Aug | 27.1 °C | 23 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 2 Aug | 27.1 °C | 27 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 3 Aug | 27.7 °C | 30 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 4 Aug | 28.8 °C | 21 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 5 Aug | 30.4 °C | 18 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 6 Aug | 28.8 °C | 19 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 7 Aug | 28.0 °C | 22 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 8 Aug | 28.7 °C | 24 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 9 Aug after | 28.4 °C | 24 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 10 Aug after | 28.6 °C | 23 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 11 Aug after | 28.8 °C | 25 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 12 Aug after | 28.5 °C | 23 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 13 Aug after | 28.5 °C | 23 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 14 Aug after | 29.7 °C | 27 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 15 Aug after | 30.2 °C | 19 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 16 Aug after | 27.5 °C | 30 % | 56 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 17 Aug after | 26.7 °C | 30 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 18 Aug after | 27.7 °C | 27 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 1 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 44 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 29: 1.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)
Detections table · 870Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 81,932 haChipili9 August 2019 · 33 days · 13 km away
- 36,195 haChipili26 July 2024 · 21 days · 18 km away
- 156,557 haLupososhi25 July 2026 · 65 days · 20 km away
- 110,204 haChipili9 August 2025 · 32 days · 21 km away
- 296,161 haMansa15 August 2025 · 37 days · 34 km away
- 76,625 haChipili18 August 2016 · 22 days · 37 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Chipili fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 26 July 2024 and 8 August 2024: 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 21,299 hectares (213.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Chipili (21,429 ha, 5.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 30.4 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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
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.