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Mpongwe fire, July 2018 Mpongwe

Out · last detection 10 Aug 2018, 23:42 UTC

The fire started on 31 July 2018 in Mpongwe, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,406 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 58th largest in Copperbelt since 2016 (of 84 with a page). Number 158 in Zambia in 2018, of 204.

Burnt area
3,406ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
31 Jul 2018 – 9 Aug 2018
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
31 Jul
2018
Heat detections
160
in a single hotspot: 72 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 Aug 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 31 Jul9 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

311234568910

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
43km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

43% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,245 ha in 2016, 842 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,467 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mpongwe where it started
    3,426 ha reached on 25 Jul
    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)
31 Jul 28.0 °C 21 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
1 Aug 27.7 °C 24 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
2 Aug 28.8 °C 25 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
3 Aug 29.0 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
4 Aug 28.1 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
5 Aug 28.8 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
6 Aug 29.2 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
7 Aug 30.6 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
8 Aug 30.8 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
9 Aug 31.2 °C 14 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
10 Aug after 29.8 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
11 Aug after 30.1 °C 15 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
12 Aug after 28.3 °C 19 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
13 Aug after 28.7 °C 23 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
14 Aug after 28.5 °C 24 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
15 Aug after 28.7 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
16 Aug after 28.9 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
17 Aug after 28.8 °C 21 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
18 Aug after 29.4 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
19 Aug after 27.3 °C 25 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Jul 2018
After · 16 Aug 2018

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 · 160Every 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 31 July 2018 and 9 August 2018: 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 3,406 hectares (34.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mpongwe (3,426 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.2 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 43 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.