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Rufunsa fire, October 2020 Rufunsa

Out · last detection 27 Oct 2020, 22:33 UTC

The fire started on 20 October 2020 in Rufunsa, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,371 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 57th largest in Lusaka since 2016 (of 78 with a page). Number 187 in Zambia in 2020, of 229.

The power measured by the satellite is low (14.5 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
3,371ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
20 Oct 2020 – 27 Oct 2020
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
20 Oct
2020
Heat detections
105
in a single hotspot: 14 MW
Danger at start
34
High · FWI index
Energy released
516MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

27 Oct 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Oct27 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

2021222324252627

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
63km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.3 mm on 3 Nov.

This area had burned before

13% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 446 ha in 2019.

What happened to each town

  1. Rufunsa where it started
    3,393 ha reached on 20 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)
20 Oct 34.5 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
21 Oct 34.3 °C 22 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
22 Oct 31.1 °C 32 % 63 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
23 Oct 32.3 °C 26 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
24 Oct 33.4 °C 24 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
25 Oct 33.1 °C 25 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
26 Oct 33.8 °C 26 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
27 Oct 33.5 °C 29 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
28 Oct after 33.6 °C 26 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
29 Oct after 33.8 °C 31 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
30 Oct after 34.3 °C 23 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
31 Oct after 32.3 °C 24 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
1 Nov after 31.4 °C 39 % 48 km/h 0.1 mm High 33
2 Nov after 32.9 °C 37 % 51 km/h 0.5 mm High 33
3 Nov after 34.2 °C 36 % 43 km/h 1.3 mm High 24

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Oct 2020
After · 3 Nov 2020

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 · 105Every 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 20 October 2020 and 27 October 2020: 8 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 3,371 hectares (33.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Rufunsa (3,393 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.5 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 63 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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.