How long did the Mwinilunga fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 17 August 2024 and 23 August 2024: 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 3,844 hectares (38.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mwinilunga (3,542 ha, 0.2 %); Kalumbila (334 ha, 0.0 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 31.0 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 44 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.

ZM · Zambia · 2024-08-17 → 2024-08-23

Mwinilunga fire, 17 August 2024 Mwinilunga, Kalumbila

Out · last detection 23 Aug 2024, 11:51 UTC

The fire started on 17 August 2024 in Mwinilunga, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,844 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 159th largest in North-Western since 2016 (of 286 with a page). Number 108 in Zambia in 2024, of 160.

Burnt area: 3,844ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 7days; 17 Aug 2024 – 23 Aug 2024
Municipalities hit: 2; districts
Started on: 17 Aug; 2024
Heat detections: 132; in a single hotspot: 65 MW
Danger at start: 51; Extreme · FWI index
Energy released: 1.1GW; sum of detected power

Play back 23 Aug 2024

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Aug23 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

17181920212223

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

44km/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

49% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,079 ha in 2018, 561 ha in 2020, 565 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,885 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Mwinilunga where it started

3,542 ha reached on 13 Aug

0.2 %
Kalumbila

334 ha reached on 14 Aug

0.0 %

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)
17 Aug	30.2 °C	16 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
18 Aug	30.4 °C	13 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
19 Aug	30.7 °C	13 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
20 Aug	31.0 °C	13 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
21 Aug	30.0 °C	15 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
22 Aug	30.7 °C	11 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
23 Aug	30.0 °C	15 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
24 Aug after	29.5 °C	18 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
25 Aug after	29.8 °C	19 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
26 Aug after	30.7 °C	13 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
27 Aug after	31.5 °C	11 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
28 Aug after	33.6 °C	11 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
29 Aug after	34.3 °C	11 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
30 Aug after	33.6 °C	14 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 55
31 Aug after	30.9 °C	27 %	54 km/h	0.3 mm	Very high 50
1 Sept after	30.3 °C	23 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
2 Sept after	29.4 °C	19 %	39 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 · 10 Aug 2024

After · 30 Aug 2024

Before After

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 16 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 37 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 23: 1.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak37 µg/m³

Days over the guideline7 days

PM1054 µg/m³

Optical depth0.64

WHO 15

151617181920212223242526

Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 132Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Zambia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Mwinilunga fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 17 August 2024 and 23 August 2024: 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 3,844 hectares (38.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mwinilunga (3,542 ha, 0.2 %); Kalumbila (334 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 31.0 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 44 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

Where it burned