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Rufunsa fire, 21 September 2022 Rufunsa

Out · last detection 2 Oct 2022, 11:07 UTC

The fire started on 21 September 2022 in Rufunsa, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,729 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 25th largest in Lusaka since 2016 (of 78 with a page). Number 84 in Zambia in 2022, of 235.

The power measured by the satellite is low (23.8 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
5,729ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
11days
21 Sept 2022 – 1 Oct 2022
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
21 Sept
2022
Heat detections
192
in a single hotspot: 24 MW
Danger at start
45
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
821MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

2 Oct 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Sept1 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

2122232425262728293012

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
48km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

77% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,317 ha in 2016, 1,449 ha in 2017, 1,002 ha in 2018, 583 ha in 2019, 931 ha in 2020, 1,038 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,422 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Rufunsa where it started
    5,770 ha reached on 18 Sept
    0.6 %

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)
21 Sept 34.1 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
22 Sept 33.8 °C 24 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
23 Sept 33.8 °C 23 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
24 Sept 33.1 °C 20 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
25 Sept 32.0 °C 29 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
26 Sept 33.4 °C 24 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
27 Sept 34.6 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
28 Sept 32.1 °C 31 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
29 Sept 30.7 °C 29 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
30 Sept 31.9 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
1 Oct 32.4 °C 27 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
2 Oct after 33.0 °C 21 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
3 Oct after 33.5 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
4 Oct after 35.3 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
5 Oct after 35.4 °C 19 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
6 Oct after 34.3 °C 18 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
7 Oct after 35.0 °C 12 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
8 Oct after 32.9 °C 21 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
9 Oct after 33.0 °C 19 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
10 Oct after 33.7 °C 23 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
11 Oct after 33.1 °C 22 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 14 Sept 2022
After · 8 Oct 2022

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 · 192Every 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 21 September 2022 and 1 October 2022: 11 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 5,729 hectares (57.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Rufunsa (5,770 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.6 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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.