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Kafue fire, October 2020 Kafue, Chilanga

Out · last detection 24 Oct 2020, 23:30 UTC

The fire started on 20 October 2020 in Kafue, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,138 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 73th largest in Lusaka since 2016 (of 77 with a page). Number 214 in Zambia in 2020, of 229.

Burnt area
3,138ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
20 Oct 2020 – 24 Oct 2020
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
20 Oct
2020
Heat detections
114
in a single hotspot: 115 MW
Danger at start
38
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

24 Oct 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Oct24 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

20222324

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
52km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.7 mm on 3 Nov.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Kafue where it started
    3,142 ha reached on 20 Oct
    0.7 %
  2. Chilanga
    12 ha reached on 23 Oct
    0.0 %

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)
20 Oct 32.2 °C 15 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
21 Oct 32.7 °C 17 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
22 Oct 28.9 °C 30 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
23 Oct 30.5 °C 21 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
24 Oct 31.2 °C 21 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
25 Oct after 31.4 °C 21 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
26 Oct after 32.0 °C 22 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
27 Oct after 31.2 °C 26 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
28 Oct after 31.1 °C 24 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
29 Oct after 31.4 °C 26 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
30 Oct after 32.5 °C 18 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
31 Oct after 30.9 °C 18 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
1 Nov after 28.6 °C 36 % 49 km/h 0.1 mm High 36
2 Nov after 29.3 °C 35 % 44 km/h 0.8 mm High 27
3 Nov after 31.3 °C 31 % 45 km/h 1.7 mm High 23

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Oct 2020
After · 31 Oct 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 · 114Every 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 Kafue fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 20 October 2020 and 24 October 2020: 5 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 3,138 hectares (31.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Kafue (3,142 ha, 0.7 %); Chilanga (12 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.7 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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.