Mwense fire, 29 July 2019 Mwense, Mansa
The fire started on 29 July 2019 in Mwense, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,194 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 128th largest in Luapula since 2016 (of 533 with a page). Number 37 in Zambia in 2019, of 243.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Mwense · 2016Mwense · 2018Mwense · 2017Mwense · 2017
- Burnt area
- 10,194ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 18days
- 29 Jul 2019 – 15 Aug 2019
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 29 Jul
- 2019
- Heat detections
- 312
- in a single hotspot: 78 MW
- Danger at start
- 39
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 136MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
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: 8,060 ha in 2016, 6,458 ha in 2017, 5,139 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 9,546 ha that had burned before.
- 5,683 ha Mwense fire, July 2016 26,027 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,020 ha Mwense fire, August 2018 3,264 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,598 ha Mwense fire, July 2017 10,973 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,047 ha Mwense fire, August 2017 10,432 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,791 ha Mwense fire, August 2018 11,110 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,646 ha Mwense fire, August 2016 10,696 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 157 ha Mansa fire, August 2017 29,616 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Mwense where it started10,245 ha reached on 29 Jul4.2 %
-
24 ha reached on 15 Aug0.0 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2020Inside the perimeter there were about 4.0 hectares of built-up land and about 200 residents (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
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 Jul | 27.8 °C | 25 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 30 Jul | 28.5 °C | 26 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 31 Jul | 28.9 °C | 22 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 1 Aug | 29.7 °C | 23 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 2 Aug | 29.2 °C | 34 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 3 Aug | 28.8 °C | 40 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 4 Aug | 29.4 °C | 33 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 5 Aug | 31.4 °C | 24 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 6 Aug | 31.3 °C | 21 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 7 Aug | 31.9 °C | 19 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 8 Aug | 31.7 °C | 21 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 9 Aug | 31.1 °C | 19 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 10 Aug | 28.9 °C | 24 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 11 Aug | 29.0 °C | 26 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 12 Aug | 30.1 °C | 21 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 13 Aug | 30.9 °C | 18 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 14 Aug | 29.3 °C | 19 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 15 Aug | 27.5 °C | 24 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 16 Aug after | 27.0 °C | 27 % | 56 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 17 Aug after | 27.7 °C | 28 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 18 Aug after | 28.4 °C | 26 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 19 Aug after | 27.4 °C | 23 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 20 Aug after | 28.1 °C | 21 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 21 Aug after | 27.1 °C | 23 % | 56 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 22 Aug after | 26.0 °C | 29 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 23 Aug after | 27.2 °C | 27 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 24 Aug after | 28.9 °C | 26 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 25 Aug after | 30.1 °C | 29 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · 312Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 80,978 haMansa22 August 2016 · 21 days · 22 km away
- 258,414 haMansa21 August 2017 · 34 days · 25 km away
- 83,277 haMansa27 August 2018 · 19 days · 33 km away
- 185,598 haMansa21 August 2022 · 28 days · 37 km away
- 133,309 haMansa27 August 2023 · 23 days · 37 km away
- 79,600 haMansa10 August 2024 · 29 days · 38 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Mwense fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 29 July 2019 and 15 August 2019: 18 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 10,194 hectares (101.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mwense (10,245 ha, 4.2 %); Mansa (24 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 31.9 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 54 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
History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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.
Report an error
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 312 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.