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ZM · Zambia · →

Lunte fire, 14 October 2016 Lunte

Out · last detection 18 Oct 2016, 23:35 UTC

The fire started on 14 October 2016 in Lunte, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,254 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 336th largest in Northern since 2016 (of 628 with a page). Number 128 in Zambia in 2016, of 246.

Burnt area
4,254ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
14 Oct 2016 – 17 Oct 2016
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
14 Oct
2016
Heat detections
151
in a single hotspot: 104 MW
Danger at start
51
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
1.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

18 Oct 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Oct17 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

1415161718

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
47km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Lunte where it started
    4,280 ha reached on 14 Oct
    0.6 %

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 30.5 °C 20 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
15 Oct 30.4 °C 20 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
16 Oct 31.1 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
17 Oct 31.5 °C 22 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
18 Oct after 32.0 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
19 Oct after 29.5 °C 22 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
20 Oct after 29.7 °C 19 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
21 Oct after 30.2 °C 17 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
22 Oct after 30.9 °C 21 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
23 Oct after 31.8 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
24 Oct after 32.1 °C 18 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
25 Oct after 31.1 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
26 Oct after 31.1 °C 25 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
27 Oct after 30.8 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Oct 2016
After · 24 Oct 2016

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 · 151Every 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 Lunte fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 14 October 2016 and 17 October 2016: 4 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 4,254 hectares (42.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Lunte (4,280 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.5 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, 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.