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Mpika fire, 24 October 2019 Mpika

Out · last detection 31 Oct 2019, 11:13 UTC

The fire started on 24 October 2019 in Mpika, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,178 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 307th largest in Muchinga since 2016 (of 513 with a page). Number 137 in Zambia in 2019, of 243.

Burnt area
4,178ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
24 Oct 2019 – 31 Oct 2019
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
24 Oct
2019
Heat detections
115
in a single hotspot: 105 MW
Danger at start
50
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
1.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

31 Oct 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Oct31 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

24262728293031

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

The weather it burned in

42°high
43km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone 19 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.9 mm on 5 Nov.

This area had burned before

82% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,608 ha in 2016, 3,064 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,434 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mpika where it started
    4,215 ha reached on 24 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)
24 Oct 40.5 °C 22 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
25 Oct 39.3 °C 17 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
26 Oct 40.0 °C 16 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
27 Oct 39.8 °C 12 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
28 Oct 40.3 °C 11 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
29 Oct 41.9 °C 10 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
30 Oct 40.7 °C 12 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
31 Oct 39.9 °C 12 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
1 Nov after 38.3 °C 19 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
2 Nov after 35.3 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 42
3 Nov after 38.6 °C 19 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
4 Nov after 38.5 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
5 Nov after 35.1 °C 28 % 46 km/h 1.9 mm High 32

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 17 Oct 2019
After · 7 Nov 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 · 115Every 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 24 October 2019 and 31 October 2019: 8 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 4,178 hectares (41.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mpika (4,215 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 41.9 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 63, 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.