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Kasama fire, 26 August 2018 Kasama

Out · last detection 2 Sept 2018, 12:04 UTC

The fire started on 26 August 2018 in Kasama, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,878 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 189th largest in Northern since 2016 (of 628 with a page). Number 60 in Zambia in 2018, of 204.

Burnt area
5,878ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
26 Aug 2018 – 2 Sept 2018
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
26 Aug
2018
Heat detections
180
in a single hotspot: 68 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

2 Sept 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 Aug2 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

26272829303112

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

The weather it burned in

29°high
50km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.9 mm on 10 Sept.

This area had burned before

49% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,326 ha in 2016, 2,004 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,871 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Kasama where it started
    5,910 ha reached on 26 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)
26 Aug 29.1 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
27 Aug 29.0 °C 18 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
28 Aug 29.1 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
29 Aug 27.3 °C 23 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
30 Aug 27.2 °C 26 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
31 Aug 27.2 °C 24 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
1 Sept 28.4 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
2 Sept 28.9 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
3 Sept after 29.9 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
4 Sept after 29.8 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
5 Sept after 30.1 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
6 Sept after 28.5 °C 29 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
7 Sept after 29.5 °C 26 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
8 Sept after 29.1 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
9 Sept after 31.1 °C 27 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
10 Sept after 28.1 °C 34 % 33 km/h 1.9 mm Moderate 14

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 19 Aug 2018
After · 9 Sept 2018

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 · 180Every 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 Kasama fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 26 August 2018 and 2 September 2018: 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 5,878 hectares (58.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kasama (5,910 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.1 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, 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.