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Mpulungu fire, 24 August 2016 Mpulungu

Out · last detection 31 Aug 2016, 23:35 UTC

The fire started on 24 August 2016 in Mpulungu, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,689 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 205th largest in Northern since 2016 (of 628 with a page). Number 87 in Zambia in 2016, of 246.

Burnt area
5,689ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
24 Aug 2016 – 31 Aug 2016
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
24 Aug
2016
Heat detections
218
in a single hotspot: 81 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

31 Aug 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Aug31 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

24262728293031

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

The weather it burned in

27°high
51km/h · peak gust
25%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Mpulungu where it started
    5,723 ha reached on 20 Aug
    0.6 %

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)
24 Aug 27.1 °C 26 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
25 Aug 26.1 °C 27 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
26 Aug 26.2 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
27 Aug 26.4 °C 28 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
28 Aug 25.9 °C 25 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
29 Aug 25.9 °C 26 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
30 Aug 25.8 °C 27 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
31 Aug 25.9 °C 25 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
1 Sept after 25.6 °C 30 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
2 Sept after 25.2 °C 30 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
3 Sept after 26.2 °C 30 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
4 Sept after 26.8 °C 31 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
5 Sept after 28.0 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
6 Sept after 28.0 °C 29 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
7 Sept after 27.6 °C 32 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
8 Sept after 27.9 °C 34 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
9 Sept after 27.7 °C 27 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
10 Sept after 29.3 °C 18 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 37

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 17 Aug 2016
After · 7 Sept 2016

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 · 218Every 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 Mpulungu fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 24 August 2016 and 31 August 2016: 8 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 5,689 hectares (56.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mpulungu (5,723 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 27.1 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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.