How long did the Kabompo fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 August 2024 and 12 August 2024: 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 3,576 hectares (35.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Kabompo (3,597 ha, 0.5 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 33.2 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, 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.

ZM · Zambia · 2024-08-05 → 2024-08-12

Kabompo fire, August 2024 Kabompo

Out · last detection 12 Aug 2024, 23:05 UTC

The fire started on 5 August 2024 in Kabompo, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,576 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 192th largest in North-Western since 2016 (of 286 with a page). Number 120 in Zambia in 2024, of 160.

Burnt area: 3,576ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 8days; 5 Aug 2024 – 12 Aug 2024
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 5 Aug; 2024
Heat detections: 121; in a single hotspot: 161 MW
Danger at start: 47; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 2.8GW; sum of detected power

Play back 12 Aug 2024

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Aug12 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

5679101112

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

The weather it burned in

33°high

38km/h · peak gust

8%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

93% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,393 ha in 2016, 1,303 ha in 2017, 1,695 ha in 2018, 1,069 ha in 2019, 591 ha in 2020, 485 ha in 2021, 1,389 ha in 2022, 269 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,313 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Kabompo where it started

3,597 ha reached on 5 Aug

0.5 %

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	Danger (FWI)
5 Aug	32.9 °C	10 %	28 km/h	Very high 47
6 Aug	33.2 °C	10 %	37 km/h	Extreme 51
7 Aug	32.4 °C	11 %	38 km/h	Extreme 53
8 Aug	31.2 °C	13 %	35 km/h	Extreme 50
9 Aug	31.6 °C	10 %	34 km/h	Extreme 50
10 Aug	31.6 °C	10 %	35 km/h	Extreme 51
11 Aug	31.4 °C	12 %	35 km/h	Extreme 50
12 Aug	32.0 °C	8 %	32 km/h	Extreme 50
13 Aug after	32.1 °C	6 %	46 km/h	Extreme 60
14 Aug after	32.0 °C	12 %	33 km/h	Extreme 54
15 Aug after	32.5 °C	10 %	38 km/h	Extreme 55
16 Aug after	31.7 °C	10 %	44 km/h	Extreme 58
17 Aug after	30.6 °C	12 %	41 km/h	Extreme 57
18 Aug after	30.7 °C	11 %	35 km/h	Extreme 53
19 Aug after	31.2 °C	9 %	42 km/h	Extreme 57
20 Aug after	31.1 °C	11 %	37 km/h	Extreme 54
21 Aug after	30.3 °C	13 %	36 km/h	Extreme 52
22 Aug after	30.7 °C	9 %	37 km/h	Extreme 53

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 29 Jul 2024

After · 19 Aug 2024

Before After

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 14 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 68 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 35: 2.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak68 µg/m³

Days over the guideline10 days

PM1098 µg/m³

Optical depth1.02

WHO 15

3456789101112131415

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 · 121Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Zambia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Kabompo fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 August 2024 and 12 August 2024: 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 3,576 hectares (35.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Kabompo (3,597 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 33.2 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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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What really happened?

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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.

Where it burned