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Mpika fire, 12 September 2019 Mpika

Out · last detection 18 Sept 2019, 11:20 UTC

The fire started on 12 September 2019 in Mpika, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,487 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 209th largest in Muchinga since 2016 (of 513 with a page). Number 78 in Zambia in 2019, of 243.

Burnt area
5,487ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
12 Sept 2019 – 17 Sept 2019
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
12 Sept
2019
Heat detections
176
in a single hotspot: 115 MW
Danger at start
30
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

18 Sept 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Sept17 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

12131415161718

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
45km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

78% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,151 ha in 2016, 1,115 ha in 2017, 2,624 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,257 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mpika where it started
    5,506 ha reached on 7 Sept
    0.3 %

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 Sept 29.6 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
13 Sept 30.6 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
14 Sept 31.0 °C 20 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
15 Sept 30.1 °C 25 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
16 Sept 29.3 °C 29 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
17 Sept 28.5 °C 29 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
18 Sept after 28.6 °C 26 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
19 Sept after 28.7 °C 23 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
20 Sept after 28.8 °C 25 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
21 Sept after 29.9 °C 24 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
22 Sept after 30.3 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
23 Sept after 31.6 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
24 Sept after 29.8 °C 24 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
25 Sept after 29.0 °C 25 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
26 Sept after 23.4 °C 43 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
27 Sept after 25.7 °C 31 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 34

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Sept 2019
After · 24 Sept 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 · 176Every 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 September 2019 and 17 September 2019: 6 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 5,487 hectares (54.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mpika (5,506 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.0 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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.