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Mansa fire, 28 August 2018 Mansa

Out · last detection 22 Sept 2018, 12:29 UTC

The fire started on 28 August 2018 in Mansa, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 25 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 34,977 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 32th largest in Luapula since 2016 (of 533 with a page). Number 3 in Zambia in 2018, of 204.

Burnt area
34,977ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
25days
28 Aug 2018 – 21 Sept 2018
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
28 Aug
2018
Heat detections
1,733
in a single hotspot: 159 MW
Danger at start
43
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
19.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

22 Sept 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Aug21 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

2829303112345678910111213141516171819202122

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
48km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

87% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 26,830 ha in 2016, 18,326 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 30,522 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mansa where it started
    35,213 ha reached on 28 Aug
    4.6 %

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 Aug 30.0 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
29 Aug 27.8 °C 28 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
30 Aug 28.0 °C 29 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
31 Aug 28.0 °C 27 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
1 Sept 29.3 °C 26 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
2 Sept 30.0 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
3 Sept 31.0 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
4 Sept 31.2 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
5 Sept 30.8 °C 23 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
6 Sept 30.6 °C 31 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
7 Sept 31.1 °C 27 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
8 Sept 30.9 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
9 Sept 31.7 °C 35 % 25 km/h 0.7 mm High 28
10 Sept 30.0 °C 36 % 35 km/h 0.2 mm High 30
11 Sept 30.3 °C 32 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
12 Sept 31.0 °C 27 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
13 Sept 31.4 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
14 Sept 32.5 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
15 Sept 32.8 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
16 Sept 32.8 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
17 Sept 32.5 °C 21 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
18 Sept 33.1 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
19 Sept 31.9 °C 16 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
20 Sept 32.1 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
21 Sept 32.2 °C 22 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
22 Sept after 32.4 °C 20 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
23 Sept after 32.4 °C 20 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
24 Sept after 31.5 °C 27 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
25 Sept after 31.6 °C 24 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
26 Sept after 33.0 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
27 Sept after 33.5 °C 22 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
28 Sept after 33.1 °C 21 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
29 Sept after 33.5 °C 19 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
30 Sept after 31.2 °C 21 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
1 Oct after 28.8 °C 30 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 Aug 2018
After · 28 Sept 2018

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 · 1,733Every 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 Mansa fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 28 August 2018 and 21 September 2018: 25 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 34,977 hectares (349.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mansa (35,213 ha, 4.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.1 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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.