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Lavushimanda fire, 5 October 2016 Lavushimanda

Out · last detection 13 Oct 2016, 23:30 UTC

The fire started on 5 October 2016 in Lavushimanda, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,560 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 97th largest in Muchinga since 2016 (of 513 with a page). Number 44 in Zambia in 2016, of 246.

Burnt area
9,560ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
5 Oct 2016 – 12 Oct 2016
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
5 Oct
2016
Heat detections
362
in a single hotspot: 88 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

13 Oct 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Oct12 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

5678910111213

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

The weather it burned in

40°high
38km/h · peak gust
12%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. Lavushimanda where it started
    9,643 ha reached on 2 Oct
    0.7 %

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)
5 Oct 34.6 °C 23 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
6 Oct 36.5 °C 19 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
7 Oct 38.6 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
8 Oct 39.2 °C 14 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
9 Oct 39.9 °C 12 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
10 Oct 39.4 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
11 Oct 37.3 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
12 Oct 38.7 °C 14 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
13 Oct after 38.6 °C 16 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
14 Oct after 38.3 °C 15 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
15 Oct after 37.7 °C 16 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
16 Oct after 38.1 °C 15 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
17 Oct after 39.4 °C 13 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
18 Oct after 38.9 °C 15 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
19 Oct after 37.4 °C 17 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
20 Oct after 37.0 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
21 Oct after 36.5 °C 19 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
22 Oct after 38.7 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Sept 2016
After · 19 Oct 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 · 362Every 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 Lavushimanda fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 October 2016 and 12 October 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 9,560 hectares (95.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Lavushimanda (9,643 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.9 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 62, 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

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.