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Kabompo fire, 1 September 2022 Kabompo

Out · last detection 7 Sept 2022, 23:24 UTC

The fire started on 1 September 2022 in Kabompo, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,199 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 248th largest in North-Western since 2016 (of 286 with a page). Number 201 in Zambia in 2022, of 235.

Burnt area
3,199ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
1 Sept 2022 – 8 Sept 2022
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
1 Sept
2022
Heat detections
153
in a single hotspot: 64 MW
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

7 Sept 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Sept8 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

134567

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
43km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,415 ha in 2016, 2,828 ha in 2017, 1,395 ha in 2018, 1,009 ha in 2019, 2,438 ha in 2020, 2,315 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,093 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Kabompo where it started
    3,214 ha reached on 30 Aug
    0.4 %

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 28.3 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
2 Sept 27.3 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
3 Sept 28.6 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
4 Sept 31.7 °C 28 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
5 Sept 33.8 °C 21 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
6 Sept 34.2 °C 10 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
7 Sept 33.0 °C 15 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
8 Sept 31.0 °C 19 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
9 Sept after 31.5 °C 21 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
10 Sept after 32.1 °C 15 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
11 Sept after 32.9 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
12 Sept after 33.3 °C 13 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
13 Sept after 33.9 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
14 Sept after 31.7 °C 21 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
15 Sept after 30.2 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
16 Sept after 31.4 °C 21 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
17 Sept after 32.7 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
18 Sept after 32.2 °C 28 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Aug 2022
After · 15 Sept 2022

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 · 153Every 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 Kabompo fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 September 2022 and 8 September 2022: 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 3,199 hectares (32.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kabompo (3,214 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.2 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 55, 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.