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Mafinga fire, 28 September 2023 Mafinga

Out · last detection 11 Oct 2023, 10:55 UTC

The fire started on 28 September 2023 in Mafinga, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,006 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 322th largest in Muchinga since 2016 (of 513 with a page). Number 91 in Zambia in 2023, of 165.

Burnt area
4,006ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
14days
28 Sept 2023 – 11 Oct 2023
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
28 Sept
2023
Heat detections
172
in a single hotspot: 41 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

11 Oct 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Sept11 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

282930124567891011

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
47km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone 29 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.4 mm on 17 Oct.

This area had burned before

42% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 961 ha in 2016, 1,280 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,694 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mafinga where it started
    4,033 ha reached on 23 Sept
    1.0 %

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)
28 Sept 31.2 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
29 Sept 31.6 °C 26 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
30 Sept 31.5 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
1 Oct 33.1 °C 18 % 31 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 41
2 Oct 31.8 °C 17 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
3 Oct 28.3 °C 28 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
4 Oct 29.3 °C 28 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
5 Oct 30.0 °C 28 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
6 Oct 30.3 °C 30 % 41 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 39
7 Oct 32.2 °C 21 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
8 Oct 33.1 °C 15 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
9 Oct 33.6 °C 14 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
10 Oct 32.5 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
11 Oct 32.0 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
12 Oct after 33.1 °C 21 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
13 Oct after 33.6 °C 21 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
14 Oct after 35.2 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
15 Oct after 35.0 °C 14 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
16 Oct after 31.7 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 41
17 Oct after 31.2 °C 34 % 31 km/h 3.4 mm Moderate 12

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 Sept 2023
After · 18 Oct 2023

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 · 172Every 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 28 September 2023 and 11 October 2023: 14 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 4,006 hectares (40.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mafinga (4,033 ha, 1.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.6 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % 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.