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Mufumbwe fire, August 2018 Mufumbwe

Out · last detection 26 Aug 2018, 00:01 UTC

The fire started on 19 August 2018 in Mufumbwe, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,183 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 124th largest in North-Western since 2016 (of 286 with a page). Number 111 in Zambia in 2018, of 204.

Burnt area
4,183ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
19 Aug 2018 – 25 Aug 2018
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
19 Aug
2018
Heat detections
144
in a single hotspot: 117 MW
Danger at start
51
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
1.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

26 Aug 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Aug25 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

1920212223242526

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

The weather it burned in

30°high
48km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

58% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 606 ha in 2016, 2,003 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,413 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mufumbwe where it started
    4,221 ha reached on 18 Aug
    0.2 %

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)
19 Aug 28.8 °C 20 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
20 Aug 28.0 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
21 Aug 29.0 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
22 Aug 30.0 °C 22 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
23 Aug 30.4 °C 23 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
24 Aug 30.4 °C 20 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
25 Aug 29.5 °C 21 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
26 Aug after 30.0 °C 19 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
27 Aug after 31.5 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
28 Aug after 30.3 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
29 Aug after 28.6 °C 28 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
30 Aug after 27.4 °C 27 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
31 Aug after 27.4 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
1 Sept after 28.9 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
2 Sept after 29.8 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
3 Sept after 31.1 °C 23 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
4 Sept after 31.7 °C 20 % 41 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 · 12 Aug 2018
After · 1 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 · 144Every 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 Mufumbwe fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 19 August 2018 and 25 August 2018: 7 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 4,183 hectares (41.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mufumbwe (4,221 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.4 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, 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.