Milengi fire, 10 August 2023 Milengi, Samfya
The fire started on 10 August 2023 in Milengi, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 15,153 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 93th largest in Luapula since 2016 (of 533 with a page). Number 8 in Zambia in 2023, of 165.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 15,153ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 18days
- 10 Aug 2023 – 27 Aug 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 10 Aug
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 563
- in a single hotspot: 70 MW
- Danger at start
- 38
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 298MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
92% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 8,008 ha in 2016, 7,719 ha in 2017, 6,934 ha in 2018, 7,184 ha in 2019, 2,478 ha in 2020, 6,563 ha in 2021, 3,606 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 13,869 ha that had burned before.
- 4,448 ha Milengi fire, August 2017 14,856 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,775 ha Milengi fire, August 2018 10,954 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,432 ha Milengi fire, August 2021 5,294 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,085 ha Milengi fire, August 2016 6,690 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,871 ha Mansa fire, August 2016 4,300 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,783 ha Milengi fire, August 2019 3,878 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,646 ha Milengi fire, July 2016 9,800 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,266 ha Milengi fire, August 2022 3,134 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Milengi where it started14,504 ha reached on 10 Aug2.4 %
-
730 ha reached on 15 Aug0.2 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 Aug | 26.0 °C | 27 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 11 Aug | 26.0 °C | 31 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 12 Aug | 26.6 °C | 27 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 13 Aug | 27.1 °C | 28 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 14 Aug | 29.2 °C | 30 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 15 Aug | 30.6 °C | 30 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 16 Aug | 30.9 °C | 25 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 17 Aug | 29.0 °C | 29 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 18 Aug | 29.0 °C | 31 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 19 Aug | 29.7 °C | 27 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 20 Aug | 31.0 °C | 27 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 21 Aug | 32.1 °C | 25 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 22 Aug | 32.6 °C | 21 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 23 Aug | 31.8 °C | 20 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 24 Aug | 31.8 °C | 21 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 25 Aug | 31.1 °C | 27 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 26 Aug | 33.0 °C | 23 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 27 Aug | 33.1 °C | 13 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 28 Aug after | 27.0 °C | 38 % | 57 km/h | 0.3 mm | Very high 46 |
| 29 Aug after | 23.9 °C | 40 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 30 Aug after | 26.7 °C | 32 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 31 Aug after | 27.8 °C | 33 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 1 Sept after | 30.3 °C | 27 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 2 Sept after | 30.9 °C | 20 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 3 Sept after | 31.5 °C | 22 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 4 Sept after | 30.7 °C | 25 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 5 Sept after | 30.7 °C | 26 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 6 Sept after | 31.9 °C | 28 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 15 August 2023 the air beside the fire reached 107 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 44: 2.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 563Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 169,563 haMilengi3 August 2026 · 20 days · 24 km away
- 30,020 haMilengi26 July 2024 · 23 days · 25 km away
- 167,326 haMilengi17 July 2026 · 54 days · 28 km away
- 25,575 haMilengi29 August 2020 · 11 days · 31 km away
- 34,977 haMansa28 August 2018 · 25 days · 32 km away
- 41,279 haMilengi13 August 2021 · 25 days · 39 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Milengi fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 10 August 2023 and 27 August 2023: 18 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 15,153 hectares (151.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Milengi (14,504 ha, 2.4 %); Samfya (730 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 33.1 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 58, class Extreme.
- 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.
Report an error
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 563 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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.