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Lunte fire, 15 October 2016 Lunte

Out · last detection 24 Oct 2016, 10:36 UTC

The fire started on 15 October 2016 in Lunte, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,332 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 525th largest in Northern since 2016 (of 628 with a page). Number 202 in Zambia in 2016, of 246.

Burnt area
3,332ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
15 Oct 2016 – 24 Oct 2016
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
15 Oct
2016
Heat detections
89
in a single hotspot: 108 MW
Danger at start
54
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
1.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

24 Oct 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Oct24 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

1516182021222324

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
48km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.9 mm on 31 Oct.

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
    3,355 ha reached on 14 Oct
    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)
15 Oct 31.8 °C 19 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
16 Oct 32.4 °C 21 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
17 Oct 32.5 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
18 Oct 33.2 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
19 Oct 30.9 °C 22 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
20 Oct 31.1 °C 18 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
21 Oct 31.5 °C 16 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
22 Oct 32.3 °C 20 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
23 Oct 33.4 °C 16 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
24 Oct 33.4 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
25 Oct after 32.9 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
26 Oct after 32.5 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
27 Oct after 32.2 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
28 Oct after 31.7 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
29 Oct after 32.1 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
30 Oct after 30.7 °C 27 % 29 km/h 0.5 mm Very high 39
31 Oct after 31.6 °C 27 % 27 km/h 1.9 mm Moderate 20

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 8 Oct 2016
After · 31 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 · 89Every 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 15 October 2016 and 24 October 2016: 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 3,332 hectares (33.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Lunte (3,355 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.4 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, 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.