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Rufunsa fire, 26 October 2019 Rufunsa, Kafue, Luangwa

Out · last detection 2 Nov 2019, 23:24 UTC

The fire started on 26 October 2019 in Rufunsa, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,150 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 28th largest in Lusaka since 2016 (of 78 with a page). Number 87 in Zambia in 2019, of 243.

Burnt area
5,150ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
26 Oct 2019 – 1 Nov 2019
Municipalities hit
3
districts
Started on
26 Oct
2019
Heat detections
206
in a single hotspot: 54 MW
Danger at start
48
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
989MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

2 Nov 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 Oct1 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

26272829303112

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
64km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone 14 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.3 mm on 7 Nov.

This area had burned before

71% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,488 ha in 2016, 2,416 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,680 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Rufunsa where it started
    5,043 ha reached on 23 Oct
    0.5 %
  2. Kafue
    130 ha reached on 27 Oct
    0.0 %
  3. Luangwa
    18 ha reached on 31 Oct
    0.0 %

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)
26 Oct 36.5 °C 19 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
27 Oct 37.2 °C 17 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
28 Oct 37.9 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
29 Oct 38.1 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
30 Oct 36.3 °C 16 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
31 Oct 33.7 °C 23 % 62 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
1 Nov 32.1 °C 29 % 64 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
2 Nov after 31.1 °C 34 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
3 Nov after 33.5 °C 25 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
4 Nov after 33.9 °C 24 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
5 Nov after 31.5 °C 31 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
6 Nov after 31.7 °C 32 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
7 Nov after 34.0 °C 33 % 53 km/h 1.3 mm High 32

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 19 Oct 2019
After · 8 Nov 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 · 206Every 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 26 October 2019 and 1 November 2019: 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 5,150 hectares (51.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Rufunsa (5,043 ha, 0.5 %); Kafue (130 ha, 0.0 %); Luangwa (18 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.1 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 64 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, 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.