Skip to content
worldfires
ZM · Zambia · →

Mpika fire, 26 September 2022 Mpika

Out · last detection 5 Oct 2022, 11:51 UTC

The fire started on 26 September 2022 in Mpika, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,925 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 242th largest in Muchinga since 2016 (of 513 with a page). Number 105 in Zambia in 2022, of 235.

Burnt area
4,925ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
26 Sept 2022 – 4 Oct 2022
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
26 Sept
2022
Heat detections
201
in a single hotspot: 53 MW
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

5 Oct 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 Sept4 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

262728293012345

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
40km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

82% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,278 ha in 2016, 2,634 ha in 2018, 2,626 ha in 2019, 129 ha in 2020, 15 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,017 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mpika where it started
    4,968 ha reached on 25 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)
26 Sept 35.2 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
27 Sept 37.1 °C 19 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
28 Sept 36.8 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
29 Sept 35.1 °C 18 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
30 Sept 34.7 °C 18 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
1 Oct 35.2 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
2 Oct 36.4 °C 13 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
3 Oct 35.4 °C 22 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
4 Oct 36.7 °C 21 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
5 Oct after 37.7 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
6 Oct after 37.4 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
7 Oct after 36.5 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
8 Oct after 36.3 °C 14 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
9 Oct after 33.6 °C 20 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
10 Oct after 36.4 °C 18 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
11 Oct after 36.4 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
12 Oct after 36.1 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
13 Oct after 37.1 °C 15 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
14 Oct after 37.1 °C 12 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 19 Sept 2022
After · 11 Oct 2022

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 · 201Every 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 26 September 2022 and 4 October 2022: 9 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 4,925 hectares (49.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mpika (4,968 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.1 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, 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.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy.

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.