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Mpika fire, 12 October 2016 Mpika

Out · last detection 25 Oct 2016, 23:04 UTC

The fire started on 12 October 2016 in Mpika, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,360 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 146th largest in Muchinga since 2016 (of 513 with a page). Number 58 in Zambia in 2016, of 246.

Burnt area
7,360ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
13days
12 Oct 2016 – 24 Oct 2016
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
12 Oct
2016
Heat detections
266
in a single hotspot: 30 MW
Danger at start
55
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
1.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

25 Oct 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Oct24 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

1213141516171819202122232425

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
48km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 31 Oct.

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
    7,402 ha reached on 12 Oct
    0.4 %

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)
12 Oct 35.5 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
13 Oct 36.5 °C 17 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
14 Oct 35.5 °C 17 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
15 Oct 34.8 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
16 Oct 35.5 °C 15 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
17 Oct 37.0 °C 14 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
18 Oct 36.4 °C 18 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
19 Oct 34.6 °C 17 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
20 Oct 34.8 °C 17 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
21 Oct 35.8 °C 15 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
22 Oct 36.6 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
23 Oct 36.9 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
24 Oct 37.6 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
25 Oct after 36.8 °C 19 % 34 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 56
26 Oct after 36.7 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
27 Oct after 35.8 °C 20 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
28 Oct after 36.5 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
29 Oct after 36.4 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
30 Oct after 35.8 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 47
31 Oct after 37.6 °C 19 % 53 km/h 1.1 mm Extreme 56

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Oct 2016
After · 31 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 · 266Every 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 12 October 2016 and 24 October 2016: 13 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 7,360 hectares (73.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mpika (7,402 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.6 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 61, 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.