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Mpika fire, 10 August 2020 Mpika

Out · last detection 11 Aug 2020, 23:16 UTC

The fire started on 10 August 2020 in Mpika, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,427 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 413th largest in Muchinga since 2016 (of 513 with a page). Number 180 in Zambia in 2020, of 229.

Burnt area
3,427ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
2days
10 Aug 2020 – 11 Aug 2020
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
10 Aug
2020
Heat detections
76
in a single hotspot: 151 MW
Danger at start
31
High · FWI index
Energy released
3.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

11 Aug 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Aug11 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

1011

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

The weather it burned in

29°high
27km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 40 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

74% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,279 ha in 2016, 1,140 ha in 2017, 88 ha in 2018, 2,298 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,537 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mpika where it started
    3,452 ha reached on 10 Aug
    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 Aug 28.5 °C 24 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
11 Aug 28.7 °C 21 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
12 Aug after 29.0 °C 20 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
13 Aug after 29.5 °C 22 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
14 Aug after 29.1 °C 26 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
15 Aug after 28.3 °C 34 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
16 Aug after 30.1 °C 28 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
17 Aug after 30.7 °C 26 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
18 Aug after 31.0 °C 29 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
19 Aug after 31.7 °C 26 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
20 Aug after 30.3 °C 32 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
21 Aug after 29.2 °C 35 % 31 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 · 3 Aug 2020
After · 18 Aug 2020

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 · 76Every 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 August 2020 and 11 August 2020: 2 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 3,427 hectares (34.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mpika (3,452 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 28.7 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 27 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, class 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.