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Milengi fire, July 2019 Milengi

Out · last detection 1 Aug 2019, 11:20 UTC

The fire started on 28 July 2019 in Milengi, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,404 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 448th largest in Luapula since 2016 (of 533 with a page). Number 205 in Zambia in 2019, of 243.

Burnt area
3,404ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
28 Jul 2019 – 31 Jul 2019
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
28 Jul
2019
Heat detections
122
in a single hotspot: 53 MW
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

1 Aug 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Jul31 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

282930311

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
37km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

90% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,028 ha in 2016, 1,891 ha in 2017, 1,958 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,062 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Milengi where it started
    3,429 ha reached on 28 Jul
    0.6 %

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 Jul 25.8 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
29 Jul 26.8 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
30 Jul 27.3 °C 22 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
31 Jul 27.6 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
1 Aug after 28.6 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
2 Aug after 30.1 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
3 Aug after 28.0 °C 41 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
4 Aug after 28.7 °C 34 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
5 Aug after 30.5 °C 26 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
6 Aug after 30.4 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
7 Aug after 31.4 °C 18 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
8 Aug after 31.3 °C 19 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
9 Aug after 31.0 °C 14 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
10 Aug after 27.7 °C 26 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 Jul 2019
After · 7 Aug 2019

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 · 122Every 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 Milengi fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 28 July 2019 and 31 July 2019: 4 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 3,404 hectares (34.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Milengi (3,429 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 27.6 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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.