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Chitambo fire, 1 September 2020 Chitambo

Out · last detection 9 Sept 2020, 11:25 UTC

The fire started on 1 September 2020 in Chitambo, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,415 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 312th largest in Central since 2016 (of 401 with a page). Number 181 in Zambia in 2020, of 229.

Burnt area
3,415ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
1 Sept 2020 – 8 Sept 2020
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
1 Sept
2020
Heat detections
97
in a single hotspot: 123 MW
Danger at start
38
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

9 Sept 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Sept8 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

12456789

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

The weather it burned in

26°high
52km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 37 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

77% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 836 ha in 2016, 958 ha in 2017, 632 ha in 2018, 1,551 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,638 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Chitambo where it started
    3,441 ha reached on 1 Sept
    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)
1 Sept 25.8 °C 36 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
2 Sept 24.5 °C 35 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
3 Sept 23.1 °C 43 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
4 Sept 22.6 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
5 Sept 21.9 °C 33 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
6 Sept 22.1 °C 36 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
7 Sept 23.7 °C 32 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
8 Sept 23.6 °C 32 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
9 Sept after 22.7 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
10 Sept after 23.9 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
11 Sept after 23.9 °C 32 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
12 Sept after 23.7 °C 34 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
13 Sept after 25.4 °C 38 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
14 Sept after 26.8 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
15 Sept after 29.1 °C 28 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
16 Sept after 29.5 °C 27 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
17 Sept after 30.6 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
18 Sept after 28.3 °C 28 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Aug 2020
After · 15 Sept 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 · 97Every 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 1 September 2020 and 8 September 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 3,415 hectares (34.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Chitambo (3,441 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 25.8 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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.