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Lavushimanda fire, 19 August 2023 Lavushimanda, Chitambo

Out · last detection 24 Aug 2023, 10:55 UTC

The fire started on 19 August 2023 in Lavushimanda, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,268 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 441th largest in Muchinga since 2016 (of 513 with a page). Number 142 in Zambia in 2023, of 165.

Burnt area
3,268ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
19 Aug 2023 – 23 Aug 2023
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
19 Aug
2023
Heat detections
106
in a single hotspot: 34 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

24 Aug 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Aug23 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

192021222324

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
36km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

95% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 82 ha in 2016, 324 ha in 2017, 1,401 ha in 2018, 907 ha in 2019, 1,279 ha in 2020, 1,514 ha in 2021, 1,083 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,105 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Lavushimanda where it started
    3,278 ha reached on 19 Aug
    0.2 %
  2. Chitambo
    5 ha
    0.0 %

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)
19 Aug 29.9 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
20 Aug 30.9 °C 23 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
21 Aug 32.2 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
22 Aug 32.9 °C 17 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
23 Aug 31.9 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
24 Aug after 31.2 °C 21 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
25 Aug after 31.3 °C 23 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
26 Aug after 32.7 °C 23 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
27 Aug after 32.0 °C 15 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
28 Aug after 25.1 °C 41 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
29 Aug after 22.5 °C 42 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
30 Aug after 26.1 °C 31 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
31 Aug after 28.0 °C 32 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
1 Sept after 30.0 °C 26 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
2 Sept after 30.5 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 12 Aug 2023
After · 30 Aug 2023

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 · 106Every 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 19 August 2023 and 23 August 2023: 5 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 3,268 hectares (32.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Lavushimanda (3,278 ha, 0.2 %); Chitambo (5 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.9 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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.