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Chitambo fire, July 2021 Chitambo

Out · last detection 31 Jul 2021, 11:32 UTC

The fire started on 29 July 2021 in Chitambo, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,230 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 348th largest in Central since 2016 (of 400 with a page). Number 191 in Zambia in 2021, of 213.

Burnt area
3,230ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
29 Jul 2021 – 31 Jul 2021
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
29 Jul
2021
Heat detections
102
in a single hotspot: 63 MW
Danger at start
34
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

31 Jul 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Jul31 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

293031

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

The weather it burned in

25°high
51km/h · peak gust
26%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

79% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,194 ha in 2016, 1,409 ha in 2017, 1,269 ha in 2019, 2,082 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,536 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Chitambo where it started
    3,244 ha reached on 29 Jul
    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)
29 Jul 25.2 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
30 Jul 24.1 °C 31 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
31 Jul 23.4 °C 35 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
1 Aug after 22.2 °C 40 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
2 Aug after 25.6 °C 26 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
3 Aug after 25.7 °C 25 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
4 Aug after 25.5 °C 26 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
5 Aug after 26.0 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
6 Aug after 27.3 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
7 Aug after 27.0 °C 26 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
8 Aug after 26.7 °C 29 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
9 Aug after 27.0 °C 29 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
10 Aug after 27.9 °C 17 % 34 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 · 22 Jul 2021
After · 7 Aug 2021

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 · 102Every 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 29 July 2021 and 31 July 2021: 3 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 3,230 hectares (32.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Chitambo (3,244 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 25.2 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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.