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Mpulungu fire, September 2018 Mpulungu

Out · last detection 20 Sept 2018, 22:32 UTC

The fire started on 16 September 2018 in Mpulungu, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,971 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 246th largest in Northern since 2016 (of 628 with a page). Number 79 in Zambia in 2018, of 204.

Burnt area
4,971ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
16 Sept 2018 – 20 Sept 2018
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
16 Sept
2018
Heat detections
208
in a single hotspot: 152 MW
Danger at start
34
High · FWI index
Energy released
3.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

20 Sept 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Sept20 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

1617181920

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
38km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

70% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,493 ha in 2016, 2,974 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,487 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mpulungu where it started
    5,003 ha reached on 9 Sept
    0.5 %

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)
16 Sept 30.7 °C 22 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
17 Sept 30.0 °C 22 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
18 Sept 32.1 °C 15 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
19 Sept 31.3 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
20 Sept 31.2 °C 13 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
21 Sept after 29.9 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
22 Sept after 31.2 °C 20 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
23 Sept after 31.5 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
24 Sept after 30.0 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
25 Sept after 30.5 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
26 Sept after 31.9 °C 18 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
27 Sept after 32.7 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
28 Sept after 32.0 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
29 Sept after 32.5 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
30 Sept after 30.6 °C 19 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Sept 2018
After · 27 Sept 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 · 208Every 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 16 September 2018 and 20 September 2018: 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 4,971 hectares (49.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mpulungu (5,003 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.1 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, 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.