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Nyimba fire, 2 July 2019 Nyimba

Out · last detection 10 Jul 2019, 11:31 UTC

The fire started on 2 July 2019 in Nyimba, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,063 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 58th largest in Eastern since 2016 (of 60 with a page). Number 236 in Zambia in 2019, of 243.

The power measured by the satellite is low (16.4 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
3,063ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
2 Jul 2019 – 10 Jul 2019
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
2 Jul
2019
Heat detections
75
in a single hotspot: 16 MW
Danger at start
24
High · FWI index
Energy released
265MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 Jul 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Jul10 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

2345678910

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

The weather it burned in

26°high
36km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

45% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,369 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Nyimba where it started
    3,084 ha reached on 2 Jul
    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)
2 Jul 26.3 °C 40 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
3 Jul 24.0 °C 51 % 36 km/h 0.2 mm High 25
4 Jul 23.1 °C 49 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
5 Jul 23.9 °C 37 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 21
6 Jul 24.6 °C 23 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
7 Jul 24.7 °C 28 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
8 Jul 25.9 °C 30 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
9 Jul 25.3 °C 27 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
10 Jul 24.4 °C 33 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
11 Jul after 24.1 °C 37 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
12 Jul after 22.7 °C 35 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
13 Jul after 23.5 °C 36 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
14 Jul after 23.1 °C 40 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
15 Jul after 24.1 °C 36 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
16 Jul after 24.6 °C 31 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
17 Jul after 24.7 °C 30 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
18 Jul after 24.9 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
19 Jul after 24.7 °C 38 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
20 Jul after 27.3 °C 25 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 29

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Jun 2019
After · 17 Jul 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 · 75Every 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 2 July 2019 and 10 July 2019: 9 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 3,063 hectares (30.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Nyimba (3,084 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 26.3 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 29, 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.