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Lavushimanda fire, 29 August 2019 Lavushimanda

Out · last detection 1 Sept 2019, 11:38 UTC

The fire started on 29 August 2019 in Lavushimanda, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,640 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 376th largest in Muchinga since 2016 (of 513 with a page). Number 182 in Zambia in 2019, of 243.

Burnt area
3,640ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
29 Aug 2019 – 1 Sept 2019
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
29 Aug
2019
Heat detections
105
in a single hotspot: 68 MW
Danger at start
43
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

1 Sept 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Aug1 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

2930311

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
40km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

46% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 36 ha in 2016, 374 ha in 2017, 1,250 ha in 2018.

What happened to each town

  1. Lavushimanda where it started
    3,658 ha reached on 26 Aug
    0.3 %

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)
29 Aug 31.0 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
30 Aug 30.9 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
31 Aug 31.7 °C 20 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
1 Sept 33.5 °C 16 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
2 Sept after 31.5 °C 25 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
3 Sept after 28.0 °C 33 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
4 Sept after 29.0 °C 26 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
5 Sept after 31.0 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
6 Sept after 29.3 °C 24 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
7 Sept after 26.0 °C 25 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
8 Sept after 22.0 °C 37 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
9 Sept after 27.2 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
10 Sept after 28.7 °C 25 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
11 Sept after 31.2 °C 20 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Aug 2019
After · 8 Sept 2019

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 · 105Every 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 29 August 2019 and 1 September 2019: 4 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 3,640 hectares (36.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Lavushimanda (3,658 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.5 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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.