Burned area
satellite only8,095ha
Perimeter published by GWIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 12 Sept 2017 – 21 Sept 2017
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
ZM · Zambia · –
Luwingu fire, 12 September 2017 Chilubi, Luwingu
Out · last detection 19 Sept 2017, 10:49 UTC
The fire started on 12 September 2017 in Luwingu, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,095 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 73th largest in Northern since 2016 (of 437 with a page). Number 54 in Zambia in 2017, of 230.
Use this data
Compare with…
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-11-15matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only10days
12 Sept 2017 to 21 Sept 2017: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 19 Sept 2017, 10:49 UTC
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only12 Sept 2017
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 12 Sept 2017
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only253
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 178 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 12 Sept 2017 – 21 Sept 2017
+− cross-check
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
The worst day
satellite only2,996MW
Total radiative power on 13 September 2017; hotspots that day: 105.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 13 Sept 2017
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model54.6FWI · extreme
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 60.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 12 Sept 2017, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model33.0°C · 17% RH
High of 33.0 °C and minimum humidity of 17% on 17 September 2017; gusts of 46 km/h on 21 September 2017.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 12 Sept 2017 – 21 Sept 2017
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
logName: Chilubi → Luwingu.
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
logLast day with fire: 19 September 2017 → 21 September 2017.
Area logged each night
Move the slider to see which area the page published each day.
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/luwingu-2017-09-5?v=2026-11-15A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire luwingu-2017-09-5.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-09-12 | 31 | 473 | 31.2 | 16.7 | 17 | 19.5 | 37.1 | 0 | 54.6 | extremo | 1 |
| 2017-09-13 | 105 | 2,996 | 31.1 | 17 | 18 | 18.4 | 41 | 0 | 58.8 | extremo | 1 |
| 2017-09-14 | 32 | 668 | 31.2 | 17.8 | 17 | 17.1 | 33.8 | 0 | 49.6 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2017-09-15 | 23 | 486 | 32.1 | 15.7 | 15 | 15.9 | 31 | 0 | 53.5 | extremo | 1 |
| 2017-09-16 | 12 | 162 | 31.8 | 16 | 17 | 16.8 | 31 | 0 | 51.7 | extremo | 1 |
| 2017-09-17 | 1 | 74 | 33 | 16 | 17 | 12 | 29.5 | 0 | 48.8 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2017-09-18 | 36 | 219 | 32.8 | 17.1 | 15 | 19.3 | 40.7 | 0 | 50.4 | extremo | 1 |
| 2017-09-19 | 13 | 200 | 32.4 | 17.6 | 19 | 18.2 | 34.2 | 0 | 52.3 | extremo | 1 |
| 2017-09-20 | 0 | 0 | 32.3 | 20.1 | 26 | 19.7 | 39.2 | 0 | 57.9 | extremo | 1 |
| 2017-09-21 | 0 | 0 | 32.2 | 20.3 | 18 | 21.1 | 46.1 | 0 | 67 | extremo | 1 |
| 2017-09-22 | 0 | 0 | 31.3 | 19.6 | 20 | 20.3 | 44.3 | 0 | 62.9 | extremo | 0 |
| 2017-09-23 | 0 | 0 | 31.8 | 18.4 | 20 | 18.4 | 40.7 | 0 | 55 | extremo | 0 |
| 2017-09-24 | 0 | 0 | 31.3 | 20.3 | 22 | 19.1 | 43.2 | 0 | 64.2 | extremo | 0 |
| 2017-09-25 | 0 | 0 | 32.6 | 18.6 | 18 | 17.1 | 38.2 | 0 | 54.4 | extremo | 0 |
| 2017-09-26 | 0 | 0 | 32.4 | 17.7 | 21 | 15.7 | 27.7 | 0 | 44.9 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2017-09-27 | 0 | 0 | 32.8 | 19.1 | 22 | 13.6 | 26.3 | 0 | 44.7 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2017-09-28 | 0 | 0 | 32.7 | 19.5 | 19 | 21.6 | 46.8 | 0 | 69.2 | extremo | 0 |
| 2017-09-29 | 0 | 0 | 33.1 | 20.1 | 16 | 22.3 | 48.2 | 0 | 66.9 | extremo | 0 |
| 2017-09-30 | 0 | 0 | 30.4 | 19.6 | 25 | 20.2 | 44.6 | 0 | 52.4 | extremo | 0 |
| 2017-10-01 | 0 | 0 | 31 | 20.6 | 25 | 18.7 | 42.1 | 0 | 53.7 | extremo | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: GWIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 8,095ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 10days
- 12 Sept 2017 – 21 Sept 2017
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 12 Sept
- 2017
- Heat detections
- 253
- in a single hotspot: 178 MW
- Danger at start
- 55
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 660MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
12 Sept21 Sept
19 Sept 2017
How it evolved, day by day
13 Sept
16 Sept
18 Sept
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
46km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
44% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,562 ha in 2016.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
5,967 ha1.2 %
-
Luwingu where it started2,182 ha0.4 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area 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)
Started with 60 days without rain: 91 % of the area in Zambia
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12 Sept | 31.2 °C | 17 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 13 Sept | 31.1 °C | 18 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 14 Sept | 31.2 °C | 17 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 15 Sept | 32.1 °C | 15 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 16 Sept | 31.8 °C | 17 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 17 Sept | 33.0 °C | 17 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 18 Sept | 32.8 °C | 15 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 19 Sept | 32.4 °C | 19 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 20 Sept | 32.3 °C | 26 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 21 Sept | 32.2 °C | 18 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 67 |
| 22 Sept after | 31.3 °C | 20 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 23 Sept after | 31.8 °C | 20 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 24 Sept after | 31.3 °C | 22 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 25 Sept after | 32.6 °C | 18 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 26 Sept after | 32.4 °C | 21 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 27 Sept after | 32.8 °C | 22 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 28 Sept after | 32.7 °C | 19 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 69 |
| 29 Sept after | 33.1 °C | 16 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 67 |
| 30 Sept after | 30.4 °C | 25 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 1 Oct after | 31.0 °C | 25 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 54.6, a minimum humidity of 17% and more than two months without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 15.
FWI at the start
54.6
Minimum humidity
17 %
Days without rain
60+
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Luwingu fire, 12 September 2017
8,095 ha
10 days
FWI 54.6
Min. humidity 17 %
Lunte fire, October 2022
4,151 ha
17 days
FWI 54.3
Min. humidity 18 %
107 km away, in 2022
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.5 mm on 27 Oct.
Chilubi fire, October 2022
3,130 ha
7 days
FWI 54.6
Min. humidity 14 %
19 km away, in 2022
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Kasama fire, September 2016
5,584 ha
14 days
FWI 56.3
Min. humidity 18 %
60 km away, in 2016
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Shiwang'Andu fire, September 2019
4,320 ha
12 days
FWI 54.9
Min. humidity 19 %
95 km away, in 2019
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 2.3 mm on 1 Oct.
Kasama fire, October 2016
4,658 ha
19 days
FWI 55.6
Min. humidity 18 %
123 km away, in 2016
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 4.5 mm on 1 Nov.
What happened to them
- 14 days
- median duration
- 4,658 ha
- median area
- 27 %
- went past 10,000 ha
- 1.5 mm
- rain at the end (median; 5 of 15 had it)
It was 1.7 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 10 days, against 14 days.
Only 4 of its 15 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 10 of 15, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 1.5 mm.
This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it
How it ended
—first rain
—no rain in ten days
46km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 21 Sept, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 5 of 15, with a median of 1.5 mm.
Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)
How a twin is chosen
- Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
- Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
- Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
- Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
- They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 5 Sept 2017
After · 28 Sept 2017
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
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 · 253Every 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 time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 26,774 haChilubiSeptember 2024 · 19 days · 1 km away
- 398,588 haLuwingu18 August 2026 · 42 days · 8 km away
- 24,986 haKasama2 September 2021 · 16 days · 19 km away
- 90,759 haKasama17 August 2025 · 41 days · 21 km away
- 25,217 haKasama26 August 2019 · 23 days · 21 km away
- 22,834 haKasama27 August 2016 · 28 days · 21 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Luwingu fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 12 September 2017 to 21 September 2017 (10 days). The perimeter dates it from 12 September 2017 to 19 September 2017.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 8,095 hectares (81.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Chilubi (5,967 ha, 1.2 %); Luwingu (2,182 ha, 0.4 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 33.0 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 67, 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.
- How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
- Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 15. Their median duration was 14 days and their median area 4,658 ha; 27 % went past 10,000 ha. Only 4 of its 15 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 10 of 15, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 1.5 mm.
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
History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Name: Chilubi → Luwingu.
- Last day with fire: 19 September 2017 → 21 September 2017.
RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version
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.
Report an error
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 12 September 2017 to 19 September 2017. 253 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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.