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Kanchibiya fire, July 2016 Kanchibiya

Out · last detection 31 Jul 2016, 12:10 UTC

The fire started on 24 July 2016 in Kanchibiya, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,046 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 501th largest in Muchinga since 2016 (of 513 with a page). Number 241 in Zambia in 2016, of 246.

Burnt area
3,046ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
24 Jul 2016 – 31 Jul 2016
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
24 Jul
2016
Heat detections
75
in a single hotspot: 55 MW
Danger at start
34
High · FWI index
Energy released
918MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

31 Jul 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Jul31 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

2425262728293031

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
35km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Kanchibiya where it started
    3,068 ha reached on 24 Jul
    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)
24 Jul 28.2 °C 26 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
25 Jul 28.0 °C 28 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
26 Jul 29.0 °C 26 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
27 Jul 28.5 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
28 Jul 29.5 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
29 Jul 29.7 °C 19 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
30 Jul 28.9 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
31 Jul 28.2 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
1 Aug after 29.5 °C 22 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
2 Aug after 29.6 °C 16 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
3 Aug after 27.6 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
4 Aug after 28.8 °C 14 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
5 Aug after 25.6 °C 25 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
6 Aug after 24.2 °C 31 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
7 Aug after 25.9 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
8 Aug after 26.7 °C 29 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
9 Aug after 28.0 °C 21 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
10 Aug after 25.6 °C 37 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 17 Jul 2016
After · 7 Aug 2016

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 · 75Every 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 Kanchibiya fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 24 July 2016 and 31 July 2016: 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 3,046 hectares (30.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kanchibiya (3,068 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.7 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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.