Skip to content
worldfires
ZM · Zambia · →

Mpika fire, August 2023 Mpika

Out · last detection 27 Aug 2023, 11:39 UTC

The fire started on 22 August 2023 in Mpika, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,638 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 263th largest in Muchinga since 2016 (of 513 with a page). Number 69 in Zambia in 2023, of 165.

Burnt area
4,638ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
22 Aug 2023 – 27 Aug 2023
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
22 Aug
2023
Heat detections
116
in a single hotspot: 97 MW
Danger at start
38
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

27 Aug 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Aug27 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

2223242527

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
44km/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

87% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 261 ha in 2016, 3,486 ha in 2018, 1,646 ha in 2019, 796 ha in 2020, 978 ha in 2021, 840 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,028 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mpika where it started
    4,680 ha reached on 22 Aug
    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)
22 Aug 35.2 °C 25 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
23 Aug 35.0 °C 21 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
24 Aug 34.0 °C 26 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
25 Aug 33.8 °C 25 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
26 Aug 34.9 °C 28 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
27 Aug 36.2 °C 20 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
28 Aug after 29.2 °C 39 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
29 Aug after 26.0 °C 37 % 34 km/h 0.1 mm High 36
30 Aug after 28.7 °C 30 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
31 Aug after 31.5 °C 32 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
1 Sept after 33.0 °C 28 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
2 Sept after 34.4 °C 20 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
3 Sept after 35.6 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
4 Sept after 34.8 °C 22 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
5 Sept after 34.2 °C 25 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
6 Sept after 34.8 °C 24 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Aug 2023
After · 3 Sept 2023

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 · 116Every 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 22 August 2023 and 27 August 2023: 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 4,638 hectares (46.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mpika (4,680 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.2 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, 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.