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Mungwi fire, 29 August 2016 Mungwi

Out · last detection 8 Sept 2016, 22:45 UTC

The fire started on 29 August 2016 in Mungwi, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,297 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 329th largest in Northern since 2016 (of 628 with a page). Number 125 in Zambia in 2016, of 246.

Burnt area
4,297ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
29 Aug 2016 – 7 Sept 2016
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
29 Aug
2016
Heat detections
206
in a single hotspot: 61 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

8 Sept 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Aug7 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

29303112345678

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
43km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Mungwi where it started
    4,325 ha reached on 28 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)
29 Aug 27.6 °C 23 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
30 Aug 27.9 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
31 Aug 27.9 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
1 Sept 26.7 °C 27 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
2 Sept 27.1 °C 26 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
3 Sept 27.8 °C 26 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
4 Sept 28.9 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
5 Sept 29.9 °C 23 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
6 Sept 30.1 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
7 Sept 29.8 °C 25 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
8 Sept after 30.9 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
9 Sept after 30.3 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
10 Sept after 31.0 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
11 Sept after 30.0 °C 22 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
12 Sept after 30.0 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
13 Sept after 30.8 °C 19 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
14 Sept after 30.9 °C 21 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
15 Sept after 31.2 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
16 Sept after 31.5 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
17 Sept after 32.1 °C 23 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Aug 2016
After · 14 Sept 2016

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 · 206Every 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 Mungwi fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 29 August 2016 and 7 September 2016: 10 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 4,297 hectares (43.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mungwi (4,325 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.1 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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.