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Lunte fire, 16 September 2018 Lunte

Out · last detection 27 Sept 2018, 10:55 UTC

The fire started on 16 September 2018 in Lunte, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,859 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 255th largest in Northern since 2016 (of 628 with a page). Number 82 in Zambia in 2018, of 204.

Burnt area
4,859ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
11days
16 Sept 2018 – 26 Sept 2018
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
16 Sept
2018
Heat detections
163
in a single hotspot: 69 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

27 Sept 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Sept26 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

161718192021222324252627

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
47km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.4 mm on 5 Oct.

This area had burned before

32% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,164 ha in 2016, 908 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,578 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Lunte where it started
    4,893 ha reached on 14 Sept
    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)
16 Sept 30.5 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
17 Sept 29.7 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
18 Sept 30.6 °C 17 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
19 Sept 29.6 °C 18 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
20 Sept 30.1 °C 16 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
21 Sept 29.5 °C 23 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
22 Sept 30.1 °C 21 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
23 Sept 29.7 °C 23 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
24 Sept 29.0 °C 26 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
25 Sept 29.0 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
26 Sept 30.8 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
27 Sept after 30.7 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
28 Sept after 30.4 °C 22 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
29 Sept after 31.1 °C 20 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
30 Sept after 29.1 °C 22 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
1 Oct after 27.5 °C 27 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
2 Oct after 27.4 °C 31 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
3 Oct after 28.4 °C 30 % 37 km/h 0.1 mm High 37
4 Oct after 29.0 °C 30 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
5 Oct after 29.4 °C 30 % 44 km/h 1.4 mm High 25

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Sept 2018
After · 3 Oct 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 · 163Every 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 16 September 2018 and 26 September 2018: 11 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 4,859 hectares (48.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Lunte (4,893 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.8 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, class Very 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.