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Chitambo fire, 9 September 2019 Chitambo

Out · last detection 14 Sept 2019, 10:54 UTC

The fire started on 9 September 2019 in Chitambo, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,605 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 60th largest in Central since 2016 (of 401 with a page). Number 41 in Zambia in 2019, of 243.

Burnt area
9,605ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
9 Sept 2019 – 13 Sept 2019
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
9 Sept
2019
Heat detections
282
in a single hotspot: 70 MW
Danger at start
20
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
408MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

14 Sept 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Sept13 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

9 Sept 2019 · 426 MW · 29 10 Sept 2019 · 1,186 MW · 120 11 Sept 2019 · 427 MW · 39 12 Sept 2019 · 206 MW · 24 13 Sept 2019 · 162 MW · 22 14 Sept 2019 · 36 MW · 10
9 Sept 10 Sept 11 Sept 12 Sept 13 Sept 14 Sept

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

The weather it burned in

30°high
39km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

72% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,632 ha in 2016, 4,418 ha in 2017, 5,697 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,954 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Chitambo where it started
    9,677 ha reached on 9 Sept
    0.8 %

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)
9 Sept 21.2 °C 36 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
10 Sept 24.1 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
11 Sept 26.9 °C 26 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
12 Sept 29.0 °C 27 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
13 Sept 29.5 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
14 Sept after 29.5 °C 20 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
15 Sept after 27.3 °C 30 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
16 Sept after 26.4 °C 30 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
17 Sept after 26.8 °C 30 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
18 Sept after 26.3 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
19 Sept after 27.0 °C 26 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
20 Sept after 26.5 °C 28 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
21 Sept after 27.3 °C 26 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
22 Sept after 28.5 °C 28 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
23 Sept after 29.4 °C 26 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 Sept 2019
After · 20 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 · 282Every 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 9 September 2019 and 13 September 2019: 5 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 9,605 hectares (96.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Chitambo (9,677 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.5 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, class 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.