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Chitambo fire, 27 August 2019 Chitambo

Out · last detection 2 Sept 2019, 11:19 UTC

The fire started on 27 August 2019 in Chitambo, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,156 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 224th largest in Central since 2016 (of 401 with a page). Number 138 in Zambia in 2019, of 243.

The power measured by the satellite is low (22.7 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
4,156ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
27 Aug 2019 – 2 Sept 2019
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
27 Aug
2019
Heat detections
197
in a single hotspot: 23 MW
Danger at start
35
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

2 Sept 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Aug2 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

272829303112

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

32°high
45km/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

34% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 897 ha in 2017, 824 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,432 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Chitambo where it started
    4,180 ha reached on 27 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)
27 Aug 29.1 °C 28 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
28 Aug 29.3 °C 19 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
29 Aug 29.1 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
30 Aug 29.0 °C 21 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
31 Aug 30.3 °C 18 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
1 Sept 31.8 °C 17 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
2 Sept 29.2 °C 30 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
3 Sept after 26.4 °C 35 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
4 Sept after 27.2 °C 31 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
5 Sept after 29.2 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
6 Sept after 27.1 °C 27 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
7 Sept after 24.2 °C 27 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
8 Sept after 18.8 °C 43 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
9 Sept after 25.3 °C 26 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
10 Sept after 27.2 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
11 Sept after 29.4 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
12 Sept after 31.4 °C 23 % 36 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.

Before · 20 Aug 2019
After · 9 Sept 2019

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 · 197Every 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 Chitambo fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 27 August 2019 and 2 September 2019: 7 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 4,156 hectares (41.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Chitambo (4,180 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.8 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 45 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.

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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.