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ZM · Zambia · →

Nyimba fire, October 2017 Nyimba

Out · last detection 21 Oct 2017, 12:28 UTC

The fire started on 15 October 2017 in Nyimba, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,292 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 11th largest in Eastern since 2016 (of 59 with a page). Number 70 in Zambia in 2017, of 230.

Burnt area
6,292ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
15 Oct 2017 – 21 Oct 2017
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
15 Oct
2017
Heat detections
191
in a single hotspot: 33 MW
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

21 Oct 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Oct21 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

15161718192021

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

The weather it burned in

41°high
47km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.2 mm on 28 Oct.

This area had burned before

26% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,613 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Nyimba where it started
    6,337 ha reached on 15 Oct
    0.6 %

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)
15 Oct 33.5 °C 21 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
16 Oct 37.7 °C 14 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
17 Oct 39.7 °C 13 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
18 Oct 40.7 °C 13 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
19 Oct 36.6 °C 26 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
20 Oct 39.3 °C 18 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
21 Oct 38.6 °C 16 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
22 Oct after 33.7 °C 31 % 55 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 43
23 Oct after 35.4 °C 25 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
24 Oct after 36.4 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
25 Oct after 38.6 °C 19 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
26 Oct after 39.8 °C 19 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
27 Oct after 38.4 °C 23 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
28 Oct after 29.1 °C 29 % 50 km/h 1.2 mm High 34

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 8 Oct 2017
After · 28 Oct 2017

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 · 191Every 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 Nyimba fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 15 October 2017 and 21 October 2017: 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 6,292 hectares (62.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Nyimba (6,337 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.7 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 57, 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.