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Mwense fire, 23 August 2017 Mwense

Out · last detection 2 Sept 2017, 11:07 UTC

The fire started on 23 August 2017 in Mwense, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,493 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 243th largest in Luapula since 2016 (of 533 with a page). Number 84 in Zambia in 2017, of 230.

Burnt area
5,493ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
23 Aug 2017 – 1 Sept 2017
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
23 Aug
2017
Heat detections
172
in a single hotspot: 48 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Energy released
948MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

2 Sept 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Aug1 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

23242526272829303112

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
46km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

43% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,401 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Mwense where it started
    5,528 ha reached on 20 Aug
    2.3 %

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)
23 Aug 30.6 °C 21 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
24 Aug 31.4 °C 15 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
25 Aug 31.4 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
26 Aug 30.3 °C 17 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
27 Aug 29.9 °C 22 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
28 Aug 29.0 °C 17 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
29 Aug 27.3 °C 23 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
30 Aug 29.3 °C 22 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
31 Aug 30.7 °C 16 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
1 Sept 30.7 °C 13 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
2 Sept after 29.8 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
3 Sept after 29.5 °C 20 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
4 Sept after 29.0 °C 25 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
5 Sept after 29.4 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
6 Sept after 30.6 °C 25 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
7 Sept after 30.8 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
8 Sept after 30.7 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
9 Sept after 30.5 °C 21 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
10 Sept after 30.7 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
11 Sept after 31.2 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Aug 2017
After · 8 Sept 2017

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 · 172Every 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 Mwense fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 23 August 2017 and 1 September 2017: 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 5,493 hectares (54.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mwense (5,528 ha, 2.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.4 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 46 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.