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Mwense fire, 5 August 2018 Mwense

Out · last detection 11 Aug 2018, 12:16 UTC

The fire started on 5 August 2018 in Mwense, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,264 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 477th largest in Luapula since 2016 (of 533 with a page). Number 178 in Zambia in 2018, of 204.

Burnt area
3,264ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
5 Aug 2018 – 10 Aug 2018
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
5 Aug
2018
Heat detections
111
in a single hotspot: 64 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
739MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

11 Aug 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Aug10 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

567891011

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
36km/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

94% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,024 ha in 2016, 1,611 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,067 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mwense where it started
    3,288 ha reached on 5 Aug
    1.4 %

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)
5 Aug 30.2 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
6 Aug 31.1 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
7 Aug 31.6 °C 16 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
8 Aug 32.2 °C 18 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
9 Aug 32.8 °C 11 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
10 Aug 31.6 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
11 Aug after 31.4 °C 18 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
12 Aug after 29.9 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
13 Aug after 29.9 °C 24 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
14 Aug after 29.3 °C 25 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
15 Aug after 29.8 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
16 Aug after 29.7 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
17 Aug after 30.0 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
18 Aug after 30.9 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
19 Aug after 29.1 °C 22 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
20 Aug after 29.5 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Jul 2018
After · 17 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 · 111Every 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 5 August 2018 and 10 August 2018: 6 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 3,264 hectares (32.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mwense (3,288 ha, 1.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.8 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, 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.