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Mpulungu fire, 11 September 2017 Mpulungu

Out · last detection 20 Sept 2017, 12:11 UTC

The fire started on 11 September 2017 in Mpulungu, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 15,945 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 37th largest in Northern since 2016 (of 628 with a page). Number 25 in Zambia in 2017, of 230.

Burnt area
15,945ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
11 Sept 2017 – 19 Sept 2017
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
11 Sept
2017
Heat detections
620
in a single hotspot: 125 MW
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
6.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

20 Sept 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Sept19 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

11121314151617181920

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
41km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

24% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,938 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Mpulungu where it started
    16,046 ha reached on 8 Sept
    1.6 %

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)
11 Sept 31.5 °C 19 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
12 Sept 31.5 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
13 Sept 30.6 °C 17 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
14 Sept 31.3 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
15 Sept 31.5 °C 18 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
16 Sept 31.3 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
17 Sept 31.9 °C 21 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
18 Sept 31.7 °C 17 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
19 Sept 31.6 °C 21 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
20 Sept after 31.5 °C 23 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
21 Sept after 31.7 °C 18 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
22 Sept after 30.9 °C 17 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
23 Sept after 31.0 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
24 Sept after 30.9 °C 18 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
25 Sept after 31.7 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
26 Sept after 29.2 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 38
27 Sept after 29.3 °C 35 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
28 Sept after 31.4 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
29 Sept after 31.6 °C 18 % 42 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 · 4 Sept 2017
After · 26 Sept 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 · 620Every 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 11 September 2017 and 19 September 2017: 9 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 15,945 hectares (159.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mpulungu (16,046 ha, 1.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.9 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, 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.