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Kasama fire, August 2022 Kasama

Out · last detection 11 Sept 2022, 11:02 UTC

The fire started on 31 August 2022 in Kasama, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,076 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 365th largest in Northern since 2016 (of 628 with a page). Number 142 in Zambia in 2022, of 235.

Burnt area
4,076ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
11days
31 Aug 2022 – 10 Sept 2022
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
31 Aug
2022
Heat detections
166
in a single hotspot: 127 MW
Danger at start
43
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

11 Sept 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 31 Aug10 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

311234567891011

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
48km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,953 ha in 2016, 2,282 ha in 2017, 3,098 ha in 2018, 3,111 ha in 2019, 2,655 ha in 2020, 2,367 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,094 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Kasama where it started
    4,098 ha reached on 31 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)
31 Aug 27.1 °C 28 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
1 Sept 25.6 °C 35 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
2 Sept 26.0 °C 30 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
3 Sept 27.8 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
4 Sept 29.7 °C 21 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
5 Sept 29.4 °C 19 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
6 Sept 29.9 °C 18 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
7 Sept 27.8 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
8 Sept 26.6 °C 23 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
9 Sept 27.1 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
10 Sept 28.4 °C 21 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
11 Sept after 28.4 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
12 Sept after 29.5 °C 30 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
13 Sept after 29.2 °C 26 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
14 Sept after 27.8 °C 26 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
15 Sept after 28.0 °C 25 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
16 Sept after 28.5 °C 26 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
17 Sept after 29.1 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
18 Sept after 29.9 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
19 Sept after 31.5 °C 19 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
20 Sept after 31.7 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Aug 2022
After · 17 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 · 166Every 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 31 August 2022 and 10 September 2022: 11 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 4,076 hectares (40.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kasama (4,098 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.9 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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.