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Mushindano fire, 6 August 2018 Mushindano

Out · last detection 13 Aug 2018, 11:38 UTC

The fire started on 6 August 2018 in Mushindano, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,371 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 217th largest in North-Western since 2016 (of 286 with a page). Number 160 in Zambia in 2018, of 204.

Burnt area
3,371ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
6 Aug 2018 – 12 Aug 2018
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
6 Aug
2018
Heat detections
107
in a single hotspot: 137 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

13 Aug 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Aug12 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

68910111213

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
41km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

5% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 107 ha in 2016, 62 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Mushindano where it started
    3,390 ha reached on 2 Aug
    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)
6 Aug 29.7 °C 17 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
7 Aug 30.5 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
8 Aug 30.8 °C 16 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
9 Aug 31.5 °C 11 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
10 Aug 30.2 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
11 Aug 30.2 °C 12 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
12 Aug 28.8 °C 16 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
13 Aug after 28.4 °C 23 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
14 Aug after 28.3 °C 23 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
15 Aug after 28.6 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
16 Aug after 28.6 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
17 Aug after 28.6 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
18 Aug after 28.9 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
19 Aug after 28.0 °C 18 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
20 Aug after 28.0 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
21 Aug after 28.5 °C 22 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
22 Aug after 30.1 °C 20 % 31 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 · 30 Jul 2018
After · 19 Aug 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 · 107Every 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 Mushindano fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 6 August 2018 and 12 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 3,371 hectares (33.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mushindano (3,390 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.5 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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.