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Lufwanyama fire, August 2017 Lufwanyama

Out · last detection 27 Aug 2017, 11:19 UTC

The fire started on 18 August 2017 in Lufwanyama, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,736 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 46th largest in Copperbelt since 2016 (of 84 with a page). Number 153 in Zambia in 2017, of 230.

Burnt area
3,736ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
18 Aug 2017 – 27 Aug 2017
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
18 Aug
2017
Heat detections
130
in a single hotspot: 82 MW
Danger at start
38
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

27 Aug 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Aug27 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

18192021222324252627

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
46km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

21% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 796 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Lufwanyama where it started
    3,756 ha reached on 18 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)
18 Aug 29.5 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
19 Aug 29.4 °C 28 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
20 Aug 27.4 °C 31 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
21 Aug 26.8 °C 28 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
22 Aug 28.0 °C 27 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
23 Aug 30.6 °C 13 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
24 Aug 31.5 °C 13 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
25 Aug 31.4 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
26 Aug 30.2 °C 19 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
27 Aug 29.8 °C 17 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
28 Aug after 28.6 °C 21 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
29 Aug after 27.0 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
30 Aug after 29.3 °C 18 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
31 Aug after 30.5 °C 12 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
1 Sept after 30.5 °C 11 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
2 Sept after 29.0 °C 13 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
3 Sept after 29.0 °C 22 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
4 Sept after 27.9 °C 29 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
5 Sept after 29.4 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
6 Sept after 31.0 °C 25 % 28 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 · 11 Aug 2017
After · 3 Sept 2017

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 · 130Every 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 Lufwanyama fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 18 August 2017 and 27 August 2017: 10 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 3,736 hectares (37.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Lufwanyama (3,756 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.5 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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.