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Mulobezi fire, September 2018 Mulobezi

Out · last detection 23 Sept 2018, 12:09 UTC

The fire started on 16 September 2018 in Mulobezi, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,124 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 137th largest in Western since 2016 (of 162 with a page). Number 190 in Zambia in 2018, of 204.

Burnt area
3,124ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
16 Sept 2018 – 22 Sept 2018
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
16 Sept
2018
Heat detections
121
in a single hotspot: 85 MW
Danger at start
59
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
1.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

23 Sept 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Sept22 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

1617181920212223

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
53km/h · peak gust
8%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

15% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 465 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Mulobezi where it started
    3,142 ha reached on 14 Sept
    0.3 %

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 35.9 °C 8 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
17 Sept 36.0 °C 13 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
18 Sept 36.6 °C 11 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
19 Sept 35.5 °C 10 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
20 Sept 35.2 °C 9 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
21 Sept 34.7 °C 13 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
22 Sept 33.4 °C 18 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
23 Sept after 34.0 °C 14 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
24 Sept after 34.2 °C 19 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
25 Sept after 34.2 °C 20 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
26 Sept after 36.2 °C 17 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
27 Sept after 36.0 °C 14 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
28 Sept after 36.8 °C 15 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
29 Sept after 35.9 °C 14 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
30 Sept after 32.8 °C 20 % 62 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
1 Oct after 30.2 °C 26 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
2 Oct after 31.7 °C 13 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Sept 2018
After · 29 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 · 121Every 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 Mulobezi fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 16 September 2018 and 22 September 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 3,124 hectares (31.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mulobezi (3,142 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.6 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 68, 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.