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Rufunsa fire, 2 October 2017 Rufunsa

Out · last detection 7 Oct 2017, 22:59 UTC

The fire started on 2 October 2017 in Rufunsa, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,972 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 40th largest in Lusaka since 2016 (of 78 with a page). Number 139 in Zambia in 2017, of 230.

The power measured by the satellite is low (15.7 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
3,972ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
2 Oct 2017 – 8 Oct 2017
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
2 Oct
2017
Heat detections
96
in a single hotspot: 16 MW
Danger at start
36
High · FWI index
Energy released
388MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

7 Oct 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Oct8 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

234567

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
43km/h · peak gust
21%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. Rufunsa where it started
    3,989 ha reached on 2 Oct
    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)
2 Oct 33.4 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
3 Oct 34.8 °C 26 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
4 Oct 35.0 °C 28 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
5 Oct 36.6 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
6 Oct 36.7 °C 24 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
7 Oct 35.5 °C 28 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
8 Oct 37.2 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
9 Oct after 35.2 °C 27 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
10 Oct after 35.6 °C 29 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
11 Oct after 38.9 °C 23 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
12 Oct after 35.0 °C 36 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
13 Oct after 35.2 °C 20 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
14 Oct after 32.2 °C 22 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
15 Oct after 34.2 °C 18 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
16 Oct after 38.5 °C 12 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
17 Oct after 40.9 °C 11 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
18 Oct after 41.4 °C 12 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Sept 2017
After · 15 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 · 96Every 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 Rufunsa fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 2 October 2017 and 8 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 3,972 hectares (39.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Rufunsa (3,989 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.2 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, 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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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.