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Luangwa fire, October 2019 Luangwa

Out · last detection 5 Nov 2019, 11:18 UTC

The fire started on 29 October 2019 in Luangwa, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,733 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 15th largest in Lusaka since 2016 (of 78 with a page). Number 46 in Zambia in 2019, of 243.

The power measured by the satellite is low (20.8 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
8,733ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
29 Oct 2019 – 4 Nov 2019
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
29 Oct
2019
Heat detections
300
in a single hotspot: 21 MW
Danger at start
60
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
1.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

5 Nov 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Oct4 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

29303112345

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

The weather it burned in

42°high
58km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

It had gone 26 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

48% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 996 ha in 2016, 2,273 ha in 2017, 1,693 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,235 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Luangwa where it started
    8,792 ha reached on 29 Oct
    2.2 %

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 Oct 42.2 °C 12 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
30 Oct 39.6 °C 17 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
31 Oct 37.7 °C 18 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
1 Nov 35.8 °C 29 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
2 Nov 33.9 °C 31 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
3 Nov 36.6 °C 23 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
4 Nov 37.4 °C 24 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
5 Nov after 34.4 °C 30 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
6 Nov after 34.9 °C 30 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
7 Nov after 37.6 °C 26 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
8 Nov after 39.9 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
9 Nov after 38.6 °C 23 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
10 Nov after 35.6 °C 35 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
11 Nov after 37.7 °C 28 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
12 Nov after 36.5 °C 32 % 46 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 45
13 Nov after 34.5 °C 36 % 39 km/h 0.2 mm High 34
14 Nov after 38.0 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 34

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Oct 2019
After · 11 Nov 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 · 300Every 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 Luangwa fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 29 October 2019 and 4 November 2019: 7 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 8,733 hectares (87.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Luangwa (8,792 ha, 2.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 42.2 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 58 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 64, 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.