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Mpongwe fire, August 2017 Mpongwe

Out · last detection 16 Aug 2017, 11:25 UTC

The fire started on 12 August 2017 in Mpongwe, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,402 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 59th largest in Copperbelt since 2016 (of 84 with a page). Number 178 in Zambia in 2017, of 230.

Burnt area
3,402ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
12 Aug 2017 – 16 Aug 2017
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
12 Aug
2017
Heat detections
102
in a single hotspot: 39 MW
Danger at start
34
High · FWI index
Energy released
716MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

16 Aug 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Aug16 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

1213141516

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
41km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 37 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

0% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Mpongwe where it started
    3,421 ha reached on 12 Aug
    0.4 %

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)
12 Aug 26.8 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
13 Aug 26.8 °C 27 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
14 Aug 26.7 °C 28 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
15 Aug 27.1 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
16 Aug 28.7 °C 23 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
17 Aug after 30.2 °C 21 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
18 Aug after 29.7 °C 26 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
19 Aug after 28.4 °C 32 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
20 Aug after 26.8 °C 33 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
21 Aug after 26.3 °C 31 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
22 Aug after 27.8 °C 25 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
23 Aug after 30.5 °C 11 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
24 Aug after 31.4 °C 14 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
25 Aug after 31.6 °C 16 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
26 Aug after 30.4 °C 19 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Aug 2017
After · 23 Aug 2017

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 · 102Every 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 Mpongwe fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 12 August 2017 and 16 August 2017: 5 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 3,402 hectares (34.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mpongwe (3,421 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 28.7 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, 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.