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Luwingu fire, 6 September 2022 Luwingu, Kasama

Out · last detection 10 Sept 2022, 11:21 UTC

The fire started on 6 September 2022 in Luwingu, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,164 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 177th largest in Northern since 2016 (of 628 with a page). Number 74 in Zambia in 2022, of 235.

Burnt area
6,164ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
6 Sept 2022 – 10 Sept 2022
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
6 Sept
2022
Heat detections
257
in a single hotspot: 189 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
3.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 Sept 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Sept10 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

678910

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
38km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

88% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,605 ha in 2016, 2,659 ha in 2017, 1,018 ha in 2018, 3,321 ha in 2019, 1,873 ha in 2020, 2,880 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,454 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Luwingu where it started
    6,166 ha reached on 3 Sept
    1.2 %
  2. Kasama
    39 ha reached on 5 Sept
    0.0 %

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)
6 Sept 31.0 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
7 Sept 28.8 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
8 Sept 27.4 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
9 Sept 28.3 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
10 Sept 29.7 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
11 Sept after 30.3 °C 25 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
12 Sept after 31.1 °C 29 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
13 Sept after 30.3 °C 25 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
14 Sept after 28.7 °C 27 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
15 Sept after 29.0 °C 25 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
16 Sept after 29.8 °C 25 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
17 Sept after 30.0 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
18 Sept after 31.0 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
19 Sept after 32.9 °C 20 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
20 Sept after 33.2 °C 20 % 37 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 · 30 Aug 2022
After · 17 Sept 2022

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 · 257Every 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 6 September 2022 and 10 September 2022: 5 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 6,164 hectares (61.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Luwingu (6,166 ha, 1.2 %); Kasama (39 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.0 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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.