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Mansa fire, 25 August 2024 Mansa, Lupososhi, Chifunabuli

Out · last detection 17 Sept 2024, 12:22 UTC

The fire started on 25 August 2024 in Mansa, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 23 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 104,574 hectares from heat detections, spread across 4 municipalities.

This page is probably a fire complex, not a single fire. GWIS merges into one perimeter the fires that touch over weeks, which in large burning seasons can join dozens of separate fires. The total area is reliable; the origin and dates refer to the whole complex.

It is the 17th largest in Luapula since 2016 (of 533 with a page). The largest in Zambia in 2024, of 160.

Burnt area
104,574ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
23days
25 Aug 2024 – 16 Sept 2024
Municipalities hit
4
districts
Started on
25 Aug
2024
Heat detections
4,419
in a single hotspot: 143 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
47.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

17 Sept 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 25 Aug16 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

252627282930311234567891011121314151617

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
60km/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

100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 74,387 ha in 2016, 68,379 ha in 2017, 43,692 ha in 2018, 69,531 ha in 2019, 75,183 ha in 2020, 70,066 ha in 2021, 69,456 ha in 2022, 66,780 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 104,259 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mansa where it started
    56,122 ha reached on 18 Aug
    7.3 %
  2. Lupososhi
    36,751 ha reached on 18 Aug
    8.9 %
  3. Chifunabuli
    12,254 ha reached on 18 Aug
    4.0 %
  4. Chipili
    125 ha reached on 18 Aug
    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)
25 Aug 25.9 °C 32 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
26 Aug 26.5 °C 24 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
27 Aug 27.8 °C 30 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
28 Aug 29.2 °C 32 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
29 Aug 29.7 °C 32 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
30 Aug 28.3 °C 41 % 42 km/h 0.1 mm High 35
31 Aug 27.8 °C 40 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
1 Sept 24.5 °C 47 % 52 km/h 0.2 mm High 37
2 Sept 26.5 °C 32 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
3 Sept 25.3 °C 27 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
4 Sept 25.9 °C 27 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
5 Sept 26.9 °C 32 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
6 Sept 28.5 °C 31 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
7 Sept 29.5 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
8 Sept 29.6 °C 31 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
9 Sept 30.6 °C 29 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
10 Sept 30.1 °C 31 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
11 Sept 30.4 °C 28 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
12 Sept 30.3 °C 27 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 Sept 31.5 °C 20 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
14 Sept 31.5 °C 18 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
15 Sept 30.1 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
16 Sept 30.1 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
17 Sept after 31.6 °C 23 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
18 Sept after 31.1 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
19 Sept after 31.4 °C 28 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
20 Sept after 32.4 °C 28 % 26 km/h 0.1 mm High 38
21 Sept after 31.9 °C 29 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
22 Sept after 29.7 °C 25 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
23 Sept after 27.9 °C 38 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
24 Sept after 27.3 °C 41 % 50 km/h 0.4 mm Very high 40
25 Sept after 29.7 °C 32 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
26 Sept after 31.4 °C 22 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 18 Aug 2024
After · 23 Sept 2024

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 5 September 2024 the air beside the fire reached 62 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 38: 2.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak62 µg/m³
Days over the guideline21 days
PM1089 µg/m³
Optical depth1.06
23242526272829303112345678910111213141516171819
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 4,419Every 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 25 August 2024 and 16 September 2024: 23 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 104,574 hectares (1,045.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 4 municipalities: Mansa (56,122 ha, 7.3 %); Lupososhi (36,751 ha, 8.9 %); Chifunabuli (12,254 ha, 4.0 %); Chipili (125 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.5 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 60 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.