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Nyimba fire, 11 August 2018 Nyimba

Out · last detection 15 Aug 2018, 23:49 UTC

The fire started on 11 August 2018 in Nyimba, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,118 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 53th largest in Eastern since 2016 (of 59 with a page). Number 191 in Zambia in 2018, of 204.

The power measured by the satellite is low (13.7 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
3,118ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
11 Aug 2018 – 15 Aug 2018
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
11 Aug
2018
Heat detections
102
in a single hotspot: 14 MW
Danger at start
31
High · FWI index
Energy released
426MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

15 Aug 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Aug15 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

1112131415

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

The weather it burned in

28°high
38km/h · peak gust
25%lowest humidity

It had gone 34 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

71% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,156 ha in 2016, 101 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Nyimba where it started
    3,139 ha reached on 11 Aug
    0.3 %

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)
11 Aug 27.5 °C 26 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
12 Aug 27.3 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
13 Aug 27.0 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
14 Aug 27.5 °C 25 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
15 Aug 27.2 °C 26 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
16 Aug after 27.3 °C 31 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
17 Aug after 26.7 °C 27 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
18 Aug after 28.0 °C 26 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
19 Aug after 26.3 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
20 Aug after 27.2 °C 27 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
21 Aug after 27.0 °C 26 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
22 Aug after 28.3 °C 21 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
23 Aug after 28.3 °C 27 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
24 Aug after 29.1 °C 25 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
25 Aug after 28.5 °C 23 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 36

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Aug 2018
After · 22 Aug 2018

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 · 102Every 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 11 August 2018 and 15 August 2018: 5 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 3,118 hectares (31.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Nyimba (3,139 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 27.5 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, class High.
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.