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Chitambo fire, 1 August 2024 Chitambo

Out · last detection 17 Aug 2024, 12:03 UTC

The fire started on 1 August 2024 in Chitambo, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,224 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 90th largest in Central since 2016 (of 400 with a page). Number 46 in Zambia in 2024, of 160.

Burnt area
7,224ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
16days
1 Aug 2024 – 16 Aug 2024
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
1 Aug
2024
Heat detections
293
in a single hotspot: 45 MW
Danger at start
50
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

17 Aug 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Aug16 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

1234567891011121314151617

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
46km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

75% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,214 ha in 2017, 2,808 ha in 2018, 2,239 ha in 2019, 1,015 ha in 2020, 54 ha in 2021, 29 ha in 2022, 1,090 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,451 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Chitambo where it started
    7,263 ha reached on 1 Aug
    0.6 %

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 Aug 26.2 °C 19 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
2 Aug 26.2 °C 27 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
3 Aug 27.7 °C 25 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
4 Aug 28.8 °C 22 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
5 Aug 30.4 °C 16 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
6 Aug 28.1 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
7 Aug 27.0 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
8 Aug 27.8 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
9 Aug 27.8 °C 22 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
10 Aug 28.2 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
11 Aug 28.1 °C 23 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
12 Aug 28.4 °C 22 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 Aug 27.7 °C 24 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
14 Aug 28.8 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
15 Aug 29.6 °C 14 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
16 Aug 25.7 °C 32 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
17 Aug after 25.4 °C 31 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
18 Aug after 27.1 °C 24 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
19 Aug after 27.3 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
20 Aug after 25.8 °C 30 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
21 Aug after 25.5 °C 30 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
22 Aug after 27.1 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
23 Aug after 24.9 °C 29 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
24 Aug after 25.5 °C 28 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
25 Aug after 25.5 °C 29 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
26 Aug after 26.7 °C 22 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 37

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Jul 2024
After · 23 Aug 2024

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 16 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 45 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 27: 1.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak45 µg/m³
Days over the guideline14 days
PM1064 µg/m³
Optical depth0.82
303112345678910111213141516171819
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 293Every 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 August 2024 and 16 August 2024: 16 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 7,224 hectares (72.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Chitambo (7,263 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.4 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, class Extreme.
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.