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Mafinga fire, 21 October 2016 Mafinga

Out · last detection 28 Oct 2016, 11:01 UTC

The fire started on 21 October 2016 in Mafinga, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,167 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 470th largest in Muchinga since 2016 (of 513 with a page). Number 227 in Zambia in 2016, of 246.

Burnt area
3,167ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
21 Oct 2016 – 27 Oct 2016
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
21 Oct
2016
Heat detections
101
in a single hotspot: 65 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

28 Oct 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Oct27 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

21222324262728

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

The weather it burned in

28°high
50km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

It had gone 15 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.4 mm on 30 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. Mafinga where it started
    3,186 ha reached on 20 Oct
    0.8 %

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)
21 Oct 26.0 °C 26 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
22 Oct 26.9 °C 22 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
23 Oct 27.4 °C 27 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
24 Oct 28.1 °C 25 % 42 km/h 0.8 mm High 31
25 Oct 28.0 °C 28 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
26 Oct 26.9 °C 30 % 41 km/h 0.6 mm High 31
27 Oct 26.8 °C 27 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
28 Oct after 27.2 °C 27 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
29 Oct after 27.3 °C 29 % 46 km/h 0.2 mm High 35
30 Oct after 26.6 °C 39 % 38 km/h 3.4 mm Low 7

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 14 Oct 2016
After · 3 Nov 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 · 101Every 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 Mafinga fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 21 October 2016 and 27 October 2016: 7 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 3,167 hectares (31.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mafinga (3,186 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 28.1 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, class 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.