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Chitambo fire, 7 August 2020 Chitambo

Out · last detection 15 Aug 2020, 10:54 UTC

The fire started on 7 August 2020 in Chitambo, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,971 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 244th largest in Central since 2016 (of 400 with a page). Number 145 in Zambia in 2020, of 229.

Burnt area
3,971ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
7 Aug 2020 – 14 Aug 2020
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
7 Aug
2020
Heat detections
129
in a single hotspot: 38 MW
Danger at start
38
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
972MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

15 Aug 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Aug14 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

789101112131415

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

The weather it burned in

28°high
50km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

77% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,748 ha in 2016, 2,076 ha in 2017, 1,538 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,060 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Chitambo where it started
    3,988 ha reached on 7 Aug
    0.3 %

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)
7 Aug 27.3 °C 31 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
8 Aug 25.3 °C 27 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
9 Aug 25.0 °C 26 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
10 Aug 26.9 °C 23 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
11 Aug 27.5 °C 18 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
12 Aug 28.3 °C 16 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
13 Aug 28.4 °C 15 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
14 Aug 28.0 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
15 Aug after 27.8 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
16 Aug after 28.9 °C 20 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
17 Aug after 30.2 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
18 Aug after 30.1 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
19 Aug after 30.7 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
20 Aug after 28.2 °C 31 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
21 Aug after 27.9 °C 30 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
22 Aug after 26.1 °C 33 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
23 Aug after 25.9 °C 33 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
24 Aug after 26.8 °C 32 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 34

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 31 Jul 2020
After · 21 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 · 129Every 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 7 August 2020 and 14 August 2020: 8 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 3,971 hectares (39.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Chitambo (3,988 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 28.4 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 50 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.