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Mpulungu fire, October 2022 Mpulungu, Lunte

Out · last detection 18 Oct 2022, 23:54 UTC

The fire started on 3 October 2022 in Mpulungu, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,979 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 65th largest in Northern since 2016 (of 628 with a page). Number 28 in Zambia in 2022, of 235.

Burnt area
10,979ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
15days
3 Oct 2022 – 17 Oct 2022
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
3 Oct
2022
Heat detections
388
in a single hotspot: 205 MW
Danger at start
47
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
5.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

18 Oct 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Oct17 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

3456789101112131415161718

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
52km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.6 mm on 25 Oct.

This area had burned before

56% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,805 ha in 2016, 221 ha in 2017, 812 ha in 2018, 3,521 ha in 2020, 874 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,200 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mpulungu where it started
    10,885 ha reached on 1 Oct
    1.1 %
  2. Lunte
    183 ha reached on 11 Oct
    0.0 %

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)
3 Oct 31.3 °C 16 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
4 Oct 31.0 °C 19 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
5 Oct 31.9 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
6 Oct 31.9 °C 15 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
7 Oct 30.6 °C 17 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
8 Oct 29.9 °C 16 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
9 Oct 29.2 °C 18 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
10 Oct 30.1 °C 21 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
11 Oct 31.4 °C 21 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
12 Oct 30.3 °C 17 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
13 Oct 30.6 °C 17 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
14 Oct 31.0 °C 19 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
15 Oct 31.2 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
16 Oct 31.6 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
17 Oct 31.4 °C 21 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
18 Oct after 31.7 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
19 Oct after 31.4 °C 20 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
20 Oct after 30.9 °C 23 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
21 Oct after 31.4 °C 23 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
22 Oct after 31.9 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
23 Oct after 31.9 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
24 Oct after 33.3 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
25 Oct after 31.1 °C 26 % 35 km/h 2.6 mm Moderate 19

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 Sept 2022
After · 24 Oct 2022

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 · 388Every 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 3 October 2022 and 17 October 2022: 15 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 10,979 hectares (109.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mpulungu (10,885 ha, 1.1 %); Lunte (183 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.9 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, class Extreme.
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.