How long did the Rufunsa fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 9 September 2021 and 22 September 2021: 14 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 8,464 hectares (84.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Rufunsa (8,501 ha, 0.9 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 36.3 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 55 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.

ZM · Zambia · 2021-09-09 → 2021-09-22

Rufunsa fire, 9 September 2021 Rufunsa

Out · last detection 22 Sept 2021, 22:47 UTC

The fire started on 9 September 2021 in Rufunsa, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,464 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 16th largest in Lusaka since 2016 (of 78 with a page). Number 37 in Zambia in 2021, of 213.

Burnt area: 8,464ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 14days; 9 Sept 2021 – 22 Sept 2021
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 9 Sept; 2021
Heat detections: 301; in a single hotspot: 69 MW
Danger at start: 41; Very high · FWI index
Average daily power: 105MW; detected power per day, on average

Play back 22 Sept 2021

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Sept22 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

9 Sept 11 Sept 13 Sept 15 Sept 17 Sept 19 Sept 21 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

36°high

55km/h · peak gust

19%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

34% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,879 ha in 2017, 1,017 ha in 2018.

1,879 ha Rufunsa fire, October 2017 3,972 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Rufunsa where it started

8,501 ha reached on 9 Sept

0.9 %

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)
9 Sept	30.8 °C	29 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
10 Sept	29.4 °C	29 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
11 Sept	25.9 °C	33 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
12 Sept	26.3 °C	39 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
13 Sept	31.5 °C	33 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
14 Sept	33.1 °C	29 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
15 Sept	34.0 °C	23 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
16 Sept	35.2 °C	19 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
17 Sept	36.3 °C	19 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
18 Sept	30.2 °C	39 %	55 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 47
19 Sept	28.2 °C	37 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
20 Sept	31.0 °C	27 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
21 Sept	33.2 °C	21 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
22 Sept	30.9 °C	33 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
23 Sept after	29.5 °C	33 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
24 Sept after	31.8 °C	29 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
25 Sept after	32.0 °C	26 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
26 Sept after	33.2 °C	25 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
27 Sept after	33.7 °C	23 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
28 Sept after	35.2 °C	24 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
29 Sept after	37.0 °C	21 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
30 Sept after	35.8 °C	25 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 50
1 Oct after	33.5 °C	30 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
2 Oct after	35.1 °C	27 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 2 Sept 2021

After · 29 Sept 2021

Before After

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 · 301Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Zambia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Rufunsa fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 9 September 2021 and 22 September 2021: 14 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 8,464 hectares (84.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Rufunsa (8,501 ha, 0.9 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 36.3 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 55 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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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What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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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. 301 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.

Where it burned