Chitambo fire, 30 August 2020 Chitambo
The fire started on 30 August 2020 in Chitambo, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 26 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 16,181 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 29th largest in Central since 2016 (of 401 with a page). Number 22 in Zambia in 2020, of 229.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 16,181ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 26days
- 30 Aug 2020 – 24 Sept 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 30 Aug
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 597
- in a single hotspot: 94 MW
- Danger at start
- 26
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 242MW
- detected power per day, on average
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 35 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
83% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 6,707 ha in 2016, 6,707 ha in 2017, 5,354 ha in 2018, 6,001 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 13,460 ha that had burned before.
- 5,239 ha Chitambo fire, September 2016 10,866 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,680 ha Chitambo fire, September 2019 6,808 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,530 ha Chitambo fire, September 2017 9,418 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,536 ha Chitambo fire, September 2017 3,296 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 408 ha Chitambo fire, September 2018 25,250 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Chitambo where it started16,300 ha reached on 31 Aug1.4 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 30 Aug | 29.6 °C | 30 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 31 Aug | 27.7 °C | 26 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 1 Sept | 25.8 °C | 34 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 2 Sept | 24.4 °C | 34 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 3 Sept | 22.9 °C | 42 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 4 Sept | 22.6 °C | 21 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 5 Sept | 21.6 °C | 32 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 6 Sept | 21.8 °C | 35 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 7 Sept | 23.3 °C | 32 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 8 Sept | 23.5 °C | 31 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 9 Sept | 22.6 °C | 27 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 10 Sept | 23.7 °C | 29 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 11 Sept | 23.5 °C | 33 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 12 Sept | 23.3 °C | 35 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 13 Sept | 25.1 °C | 38 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 14 Sept | 26.2 °C | 34 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 15 Sept | 28.7 °C | 28 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 16 Sept | 29.3 °C | 27 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 17 Sept | 30.2 °C | 23 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 18 Sept | 28.0 °C | 27 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 19 Sept | 27.1 °C | 28 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 20 Sept | 27.7 °C | 25 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 21 Sept | 29.3 °C | 23 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 22 Sept | 27.8 °C | 23 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 23 Sept | 23.1 °C | 39 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 24 Sept | 25.6 °C | 29 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 25 Sept after | 28.4 °C | 21 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 26 Sept after | 31.2 °C | 17 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 27 Sept after | 32.7 °C | 18 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 28 Sept after | 31.7 °C | 22 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 29 Sept after | 29.0 °C | 32 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 30 Sept after | 29.0 °C | 29 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 1 Oct after | 30.0 °C | 22 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 2 Oct after | 31.4 °C | 16 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 3 Oct after | 30.7 °C | 22 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 4 Oct after | 30.4 °C | 21 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
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.
Detections table · 597Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 39,948 haChitambo30 August 2021 · 27 days · 16 km away
- 65,144 haChitambo25 August 2025 · 34 days · 17 km away
- 25,250 haChitambo3 September 2018 · 25 days · 20 km away
- 18,853 haChitambo5 September 2016 · 22 days · 20 km away
- 25,336 haChitambo7 September 2020 · 16 days · 22 km away
- 21,401 haChitambo30 August 2023 · 22 days · 23 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Chitambo fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 30 August 2020 to 24 September 2020 (26 days). The perimeter dates it from 4 September 2020 to 17 September 2020.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 16,181 hectares (161.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Chitambo (16,300 ha, 1.4 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 30.2 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, 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
History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 17 September 2020 → 24 September 2020.
- Start date: 4 September 2020 → 30 August 2020.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 4 September 2020 to 17 September 2020. 597 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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.