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Lufwanyama fire, July 2018 Lufwanyama

Out · last detection 27 Jul 2018, 11:57 UTC

The fire started on 20 July 2018 in Lufwanyama, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,438 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 27th largest in Copperbelt since 2016 (of 84 with a page). Number 96 in Zambia in 2018, of 204.

Burnt area
4,438ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
20 Jul 2018 – 27 Jul 2018
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
20 Jul
2018
Heat detections
124
in a single hotspot: 89 MW
Danger at start
30
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

27 Jul 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Jul27 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

2021222324252627

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

The weather it burned in

27°high
49km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

75% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,719 ha in 2016, 2,897 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,339 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Lufwanyama where it started
    4,466 ha reached on 20 Jul
    0.4 %

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)
20 Jul 19.9 °C 37 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
21 Jul 23.7 °C 29 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
22 Jul 23.9 °C 31 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
23 Jul 22.4 °C 30 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
24 Jul 22.4 °C 31 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
25 Jul 23.8 °C 26 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
26 Jul 25.2 °C 26 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
27 Jul 27.4 °C 24 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
28 Jul after 25.8 °C 30 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
29 Jul after 26.8 °C 24 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
30 Jul after 27.7 °C 23 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
31 Jul after 28.6 °C 20 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
1 Aug after 28.3 °C 22 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
2 Aug after 29.5 °C 23 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
3 Aug after 29.8 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
4 Aug after 29.1 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
5 Aug after 29.4 °C 18 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
6 Aug after 29.9 °C 19 % 29 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 · 13 Jul 2018
After · 3 Aug 2018

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 · 124Every 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 20 July 2018 and 27 July 2018: 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 4,438 hectares (44.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Lufwanyama (4,466 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 27.4 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 35, class 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.