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Luwingu fire, August 2021 Luwingu

Out · last detection 10 Sept 2021, 23:10 UTC

The fire started on 31 August 2021 in Luwingu, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 18,404 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 27th largest in Northern since 2016 (of 628 with a page). Number 13 in Zambia in 2021, of 213.

Burnt area
18,404ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
11days
31 Aug 2021 – 10 Sept 2021
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
31 Aug
2021
Heat detections
689
in a single hotspot: 330 MW
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
12.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 Sept 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 31 Aug10 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

3112345678910

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
55km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

93% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 9,008 ha in 2016, 6,667 ha in 2017, 3,831 ha in 2018, 7,638 ha in 2019, 8,385 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 17,055 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Luwingu where it started
    18,530 ha reached on 31 Aug
    3.8 %

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)
31 Aug 30.0 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
1 Sept 30.4 °C 19 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
2 Sept 30.0 °C 24 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
3 Sept 30.2 °C 23 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
4 Sept 30.6 °C 21 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
5 Sept 30.3 °C 19 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
6 Sept 30.4 °C 21 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
7 Sept 31.2 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
8 Sept 30.3 °C 28 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
9 Sept 30.8 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
10 Sept 28.4 °C 25 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
11 Sept after 24.6 °C 35 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
12 Sept after 28.6 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
13 Sept after 31.1 °C 28 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
14 Sept after 31.8 °C 26 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
15 Sept after 32.0 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
16 Sept after 33.7 °C 21 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
17 Sept after 33.8 °C 21 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
18 Sept after 32.8 °C 20 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
19 Sept after 30.6 °C 26 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
20 Sept after 30.9 °C 23 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Aug 2021
After · 17 Sept 2021

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 · 689Every 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 Luwingu fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 31 August 2021 and 10 September 2021: 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 18,404 hectares (184.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Luwingu (18,530 ha, 3.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.2 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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.