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Mpika fire, 31 August 2021 Mpika, Kanchibiya

Out · last detection 10 Sept 2021, 12:04 UTC

The fire started on 31 August 2021 in Mpika, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 17,741 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 44th largest in Muchinga since 2016 (of 513 with a page). Number 15 in Zambia in 2021, of 213.

Burnt area
17,741ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
31 Aug 2021 – 9 Sept 2021
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
31 Aug
2021
Heat detections
894
in a single hotspot: 129 MW
Danger at start
41
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
10.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 Sept 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 31 Aug9 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

3112345678910

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

The weather it burned in

30°high
49km/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

85% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,387 ha in 2016, 8,504 ha in 2017, 2,215 ha in 2018, 3,659 ha in 2019, 10,502 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 15,063 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mpika where it started
    10,793 ha reached on 25 Aug
    0.6 %
  2. Kanchibiya
    7,041 ha reached on 30 Aug
    0.8 %

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)
31 Aug 28.4 °C 20 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
1 Sept 28.4 °C 25 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
2 Sept 28.5 °C 26 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
3 Sept 28.4 °C 26 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
4 Sept 28.6 °C 25 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
5 Sept 28.2 °C 23 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
6 Sept 28.6 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
7 Sept 30.1 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
8 Sept 29.3 °C 29 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
9 Sept 28.4 °C 26 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
10 Sept after 26.0 °C 28 % 63 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
11 Sept after 22.6 °C 43 % 58 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 41
12 Sept after 27.3 °C 30 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
13 Sept after 29.9 °C 30 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
14 Sept after 30.4 °C 28 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
15 Sept after 30.4 °C 24 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
16 Sept after 32.6 °C 23 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
17 Sept after 32.8 °C 23 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
18 Sept after 29.4 °C 29 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
19 Sept after 27.8 °C 33 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Aug 2021
After · 16 Sept 2021

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 · 894Every 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 31 August 2021 and 9 September 2021: 10 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 17,741 hectares (177.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mpika (10,793 ha, 0.6 %); Kanchibiya (7,041 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.1 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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.