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Mpulungu fire, 23 August 2021 Mpulungu

Out · last detection 1 Sept 2021, 11:33 UTC

The fire started on 23 August 2021 in Mpulungu, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,920 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 397th largest in Northern since 2016 (of 628 with a page). Number 133 in Zambia in 2021, of 213.

Burnt area
3,920ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
23 Aug 2021 – 31 Aug 2021
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
23 Aug
2021
Heat detections
130
in a single hotspot: 38 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Energy released
696MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

1 Sept 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Aug31 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

2324252627282930311

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
34km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

34% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 504 ha in 2017, 498 ha in 2018, 163 ha in 2019, 533 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,341 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mpulungu where it started
    3,943 ha reached on 19 Aug
    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)
23 Aug 29.7 °C 34 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
24 Aug 29.8 °C 33 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
25 Aug 30.9 °C 28 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
26 Aug 31.1 °C 24 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
27 Aug 30.5 °C 29 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
28 Aug 31.1 °C 28 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
29 Aug 32.5 °C 24 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
30 Aug 31.2 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
31 Aug 31.7 °C 21 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
1 Sept after 31.4 °C 24 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
2 Sept after 29.8 °C 31 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
3 Sept after 29.8 °C 29 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
4 Sept after 29.6 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
5 Sept after 30.7 °C 26 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
6 Sept after 31.6 °C 24 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
7 Sept after 30.8 °C 30 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
8 Sept after 30.6 °C 36 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
9 Sept after 30.9 °C 32 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
10 Sept after 31.2 °C 24 % 47 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 · 16 Aug 2021
After · 7 Sept 2021

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 · 130Every 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 23 August 2021 and 31 August 2021: 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 3,920 hectares (39.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mpulungu (3,943 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.5 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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.