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Nyimba fire, 10 September 2019 Nyimba

Out · last detection 14 Sept 2019, 23:42 UTC

The fire started on 10 September 2019 in Nyimba, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,061 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 30th largest in Eastern since 2016 (of 60 with a page). Number 148 in Zambia in 2019, of 243.

The power measured by the satellite is low (22.3 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Nyimba · 2017Nyimba · 2018Nyimba · 2016Nyimba · 2019

Burnt area
4,061ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
10 Sept 2019 – 14 Sept 2019
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
10 Sept
2019
Heat detections
145
in a single hotspot: 22 MW
Danger at start
36
High · FWI index
Average daily power
110MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Sept14 Sept
14 Sept 2019

How it evolved, day by day

10 Sept 2019 · 39 MW · 16 11 Sept 2019 · 106 MW · 39 12 Sept 2019 · 237 MW · 52 13 Sept 2019 · 102 MW · 19 14 Sept 2019 · 64 MW · 19
10 Sept 11 Sept 12 Sept 13 Sept 14 Sept

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
36km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

66% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 427 ha in 2016, 1,811 ha in 2017, 944 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,683 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 2.6% of the area of London (41 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Nyimba where it started
    4,081 ha reached on 10 Sept
    0.4 %

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)
10 Sept 28.5 °C 16 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
11 Sept 31.9 °C 16 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
12 Sept 34.3 °C 19 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
13 Sept 35.0 °C 15 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
14 Sept 35.3 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
15 Sept after 32.6 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
16 Sept after 31.4 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
17 Sept after 32.1 °C 23 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
18 Sept after 32.1 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
19 Sept after 32.7 °C 18 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
20 Sept after 31.5 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
21 Sept after 32.4 °C 20 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
22 Sept after 33.7 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
23 Sept after 34.9 °C 20 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
24 Sept after 34.1 °C 19 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Sept 2019
After · 21 Sept 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 · 145Every 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 10 September 2019 and 14 September 2019: 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 4,061 hectares (40.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Nyimba (4,081 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.3 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, class Very 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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How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 145 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.