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Mufumbwe fire, 8 July 2019 Mufumbwe

Out · last detection 13 Jul 2019, 12:15 UTC

The fire started on 8 July 2019 in Mufumbwe, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,689 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 180th largest in North-Western since 2016 (of 286 with a page). Number 179 in Zambia in 2019, of 243.

Burnt area
3,689ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
8 Jul 2019 – 12 Jul 2019
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
8 Jul
2019
Heat detections
94
in a single hotspot: 270 MW
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
384MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

13 Jul 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Jul12 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

8 Jul 2019 · 1,290 MW · 31 9 Jul 2019 · 141 MW · 29 10 Jul 2019 · 18 MW · 3 11 Jul 2019 · 419 MW · 17 12 Jul 2019 · 434 MW · 11 13 Jul 2019 · 5 MW · 1
8 Jul 9 Jul 10 Jul 11 Jul 12 Jul 13 Jul

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

The weather it burned in

27°high
42km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

53% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,416 ha in 2016, 915 ha in 2017, 582 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,950 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mufumbwe where it started
    3,723 ha reached on 8 Jul
    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)
8 Jul 26.7 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
9 Jul 26.2 °C 15 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
10 Jul 26.6 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
11 Jul 26.2 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
12 Jul 24.6 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
13 Jul after 25.2 °C 22 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
14 Jul after 25.8 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
15 Jul after 24.7 °C 29 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
16 Jul after 24.8 °C 31 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
17 Jul after 25.0 °C 29 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
18 Jul after 24.7 °C 28 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
19 Jul after 24.8 °C 30 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
20 Jul after 26.5 °C 19 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
21 Jul after 27.6 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
22 Jul after 24.9 °C 28 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Jul 2019
After · 19 Jul 2019

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 · 94Every 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 8 July 2019 and 12 July 2019: 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 3,689 hectares (36.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mufumbwe (3,723 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 26.7 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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.