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Lunga fire, 14 October 2022 Lunga

Out · last detection 22 Oct 2022, 11:33 UTC

The fire started on 14 October 2022 in Lunga, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,025 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 525th largest in Luapula since 2016 (of 533 with a page). Number 231 in Zambia in 2022, of 235.

Burnt area
3,025ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
14 Oct 2022 – 22 Oct 2022
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
14 Oct
2022
Heat detections
135
in a single hotspot: 138 MW
Danger at start
55
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
1.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

22 Oct 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Oct22 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

141516171819202122

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
42km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

88% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 637 ha in 2016, 599 ha in 2017, 959 ha in 2019, 1,933 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,657 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Lunga where it started
    3,045 ha reached on 7 Oct
    0.8 %

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)
14 Oct 32.3 °C 15 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
15 Oct 33.1 °C 12 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
16 Oct 33.2 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
17 Oct 33.0 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
18 Oct 33.3 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
19 Oct 33.2 °C 17 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
20 Oct 32.5 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
21 Oct 33.1 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
22 Oct 33.7 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
23 Oct after 32.8 °C 24 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
24 Oct after 33.5 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
25 Oct after 33.1 °C 24 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
26 Oct after 35.7 °C 19 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
27 Oct after 35.1 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
28 Oct after 34.7 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
29 Oct after 34.7 °C 17 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
30 Oct after 33.7 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
31 Oct after 34.2 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
1 Nov after 36.2 °C 16 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Oct 2022
After · 29 Oct 2022

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 · 135Every 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 Lunga fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 14 October 2022 and 22 October 2022: 9 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 3,025 hectares (30.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Lunga (3,045 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.7 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 58, 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.