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Ngabwe fire, August 2024 Ngabwe

Out · last detection 21 Aug 2024, 12:28 UTC

The fire started on 16 August 2024 in Ngabwe, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,374 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 319th largest in Central since 2016 (of 401 with a page). Number 134 in Zambia in 2024, of 160.

Burnt area
3,374ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
16 Aug 2024 – 21 Aug 2024
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
16 Aug
2024
Heat detections
105
in a single hotspot: 164 MW
Danger at start
58
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
1.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

21 Aug 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Aug21 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

161718192021

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

The weather it burned in

30°high
46km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Ngabwe where it started
    3,398 ha reached on 14 Aug
    0.5 %

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)
16 Aug 29.4 °C 17 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
17 Aug 28.5 °C 17 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
18 Aug 29.6 °C 16 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
19 Aug 29.4 °C 9 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
20 Aug 28.9 °C 18 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
21 Aug 28.5 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
22 Aug after 29.5 °C 12 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
23 Aug after 27.3 °C 24 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
24 Aug after 27.5 °C 24 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
25 Aug after 28.5 °C 22 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
26 Aug after 29.6 °C 11 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
27 Aug after 30.8 °C 13 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
28 Aug after 32.6 °C 10 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
29 Aug after 33.5 °C 11 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
30 Aug after 30.6 °C 26 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
31 Aug after 27.3 °C 36 % 56 km/h 0.5 mm Very high 49

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Aug 2024
After · 28 Aug 2024

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 22 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 18: 1.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak22 µg/m³
Days over the guideline2 days
PM1032 µg/m³
Optical depth0.35
1415161718192021222324
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 · 105Every 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 Ngabwe fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 16 August 2024 and 21 August 2024: 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 3,374 hectares (33.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Ngabwe (3,398 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.6 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 58, 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.