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Mwense fire, 8 August 2019 Mwense

Out · last detection 17 Aug 2019, 11:20 UTC

The fire started on 8 August 2019 in Mwense, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,611 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 404th largest in Luapula since 2016 (of 533 with a page). Number 184 in Zambia in 2019, of 243.

Burnt area
3,611ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
8 Aug 2019 – 17 Aug 2019
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
8 Aug
2019
Heat detections
128
in a single hotspot: 33 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
659MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

17 Aug 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Aug17 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

891011121314151617

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
55km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

98% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,759 ha in 2016, 3,389 ha in 2017, 1,817 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,543 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mwense where it started
    3,630 ha reached on 8 Aug
    1.5 %

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)
8 Aug 31.6 °C 22 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
9 Aug 31.5 °C 19 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
10 Aug 29.7 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
11 Aug 29.7 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
12 Aug 30.6 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
13 Aug 31.5 °C 17 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
14 Aug 30.2 °C 17 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
15 Aug 28.5 °C 23 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
16 Aug 27.9 °C 25 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
17 Aug 28.5 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
18 Aug after 29.2 °C 26 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
19 Aug after 28.2 °C 23 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
20 Aug after 28.8 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
21 Aug after 27.9 °C 22 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
22 Aug after 27.0 °C 27 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
23 Aug after 28.1 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
24 Aug after 29.8 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
25 Aug after 30.3 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
26 Aug after 31.4 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
27 Aug after 32.6 °C 22 % 32 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 · 1 Aug 2019
After · 24 Aug 2019

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 · 128Every 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 8 August 2019 and 17 August 2019: 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 3,611 hectares (36.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mwense (3,630 ha, 1.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.6 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, 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.