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Serenje fire, 19 August 2018 Serenje

Out · last detection 27 Aug 2018, 12:16 UTC

The fire started on 19 August 2018 in Serenje, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,468 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 302th largest in Central since 2016 (of 401 with a page). Number 153 in Zambia in 2018, of 204.

Burnt area
3,468ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
19 Aug 2018 – 26 Aug 2018
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
19 Aug
2018
Heat detections
131
in a single hotspot: 49 MW
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
940MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

27 Aug 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Aug26 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

192021222324252627

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

The weather it burned in

28°high
48km/h · peak gust
25%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

38% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 380 ha in 2016, 1,031 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,312 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Serenje where it started
    3,488 ha reached on 13 Aug
    0.3 %

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)
19 Aug 24.7 °C 32 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
20 Aug 25.6 °C 28 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
21 Aug 26.0 °C 26 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
22 Aug 27.6 °C 25 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
23 Aug 28.2 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
24 Aug 27.2 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
25 Aug 26.9 °C 26 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
26 Aug 26.8 °C 29 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
27 Aug after 28.3 °C 15 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
28 Aug after 27.1 °C 20 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
29 Aug after 24.3 °C 35 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
30 Aug after 24.2 °C 32 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
31 Aug after 24.7 °C 32 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
1 Sept after 25.6 °C 30 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
2 Sept after 28.0 °C 25 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
3 Sept after 28.8 °C 26 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
4 Sept after 28.3 °C 24 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
5 Sept after 29.3 °C 24 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 12 Aug 2018
After · 2 Sept 2018

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 · 131Every 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 Serenje fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 19 August 2018 and 26 August 2018: 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 3,468 hectares (34.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Serenje (3,488 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 28.2 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, 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.