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Mpika fire, 10 October 2016 Mpika

Out · last detection 16 Oct 2016, 22:33 UTC

The fire started on 10 October 2016 in Mpika, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,689 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 364th largest in Muchinga since 2016 (of 513 with a page). Number 168 in Zambia in 2016, of 246.

The power measured by the satellite is low (22.1 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
3,689ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
10 Oct 2016 – 16 Oct 2016
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
10 Oct
2016
Heat detections
108
in a single hotspot: 22 MW
Danger at start
54
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
395MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

16 Oct 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Oct16 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

10111213141516

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
53km/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

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Mpika where it started
    3,714 ha reached on 10 Oct
    0.2 %

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 Oct 34.3 °C 21 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
11 Oct 33.4 °C 25 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
12 Oct 33.9 °C 21 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
13 Oct 34.3 °C 22 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
14 Oct 33.6 °C 23 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
15 Oct 32.9 °C 24 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
16 Oct 34.4 °C 21 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
17 Oct after 36.1 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
18 Oct after 34.5 °C 23 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
19 Oct after 33.0 °C 22 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
20 Oct after 33.0 °C 22 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
21 Oct after 33.8 °C 21 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
22 Oct after 34.8 °C 18 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
23 Oct after 35.7 °C 20 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
24 Oct after 36.0 °C 22 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
25 Oct after 35.5 °C 24 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
26 Oct after 35.3 °C 23 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Oct 2016
After · 23 Oct 2016

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 · 108Every 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 Mpika fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 10 October 2016 and 16 October 2016: 7 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 3,689 hectares (36.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mpika (3,714 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.4 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, 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.

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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.