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Mpongwe fire, July 2020 Mpongwe

Out · last detection 1 Aug 2020, 11:56 UTC

The fire started on 30 July 2020 in Mpongwe, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,521 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 53th largest in Copperbelt since 2016 (of 84 with a page). Number 173 in Zambia in 2020, of 229.

The power measured by the satellite is low (29.0 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
3,521ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
30 Jul 2020 – 1 Aug 2020
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
30 Jul
2020
Heat detections
121
in a single hotspot: 29 MW
Danger at start
31
High · FWI index
Energy released
491MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

1 Aug 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Jul1 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

30311

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

The weather it burned in

26°high
44km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

It had gone 59 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

58% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,461 ha in 2017, 1,146 ha in 2018, 712 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,042 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mpongwe where it started
    3,541 ha reached on 30 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)
30 Jul 25.5 °C 31 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
31 Jul 25.3 °C 30 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
1 Aug 23.9 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
2 Aug after 23.1 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
3 Aug after 24.9 °C 30 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
4 Aug after 26.0 °C 32 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
5 Aug after 27.1 °C 27 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
6 Aug after 28.4 °C 25 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
7 Aug after 27.5 °C 26 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
8 Aug after 25.6 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
9 Aug after 25.4 °C 23 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
10 Aug after 27.6 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
11 Aug after 27.6 °C 11 % 38 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 · 23 Jul 2020
After · 8 Aug 2020

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 · 121Every 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 30 July 2020 and 1 August 2020: 3 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 3,521 hectares (35.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mpongwe (3,541 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 25.5 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 44 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.