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Sesheke fire, August 2016 Sesheke

Out · last detection 6 Aug 2016, 11:56 UTC

The fire started on 2 August 2016 in Sesheke, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,030 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 71th largest in Western since 2016 (of 162 with a page). Number 145 in Zambia in 2016, of 246.

Burnt area
4,030ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
2 Aug 2016 – 6 Aug 2016
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
2 Aug
2016
Heat detections
121
in a single hotspot: 77 MW
Danger at start
50
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

6 Aug 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Aug6 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

23456

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

The weather it burned in

30°high
36km/h · peak gust
8%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Sesheke where it started
    4,055 ha reached on 2 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)
2 Aug 29.9 °C 9 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
3 Aug 30.4 °C 8 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
4 Aug 27.1 °C 15 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
5 Aug 28.0 °C 13 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
6 Aug 27.4 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
7 Aug after 27.2 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
8 Aug after 27.2 °C 14 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
9 Aug after 27.9 °C 20 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
10 Aug after 26.8 °C 29 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
11 Aug after 27.1 °C 25 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
12 Aug after 28.7 °C 19 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
13 Aug after 29.4 °C 17 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
14 Aug after 30.7 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
15 Aug after 30.6 °C 13 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
16 Aug after 29.4 °C 18 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 Jul 2016
After · 13 Aug 2016

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 · 121Every 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 Sesheke fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 2 August 2016 and 6 August 2016: 5 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 4,030 hectares (40.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Sesheke (4,055 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.4 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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.