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Sesheke fire, 6 September 2016 Sesheke

Out · last detection 14 Sept 2016, 11:25 UTC

The fire started on 6 September 2016 in Sesheke, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 26,497 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the largest fire in Western since 2016 (of 162 with a page). Number 11 in Zambia in 2016, of 246.

Burnt area
26,497ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
6 Sept 2016 – 13 Sept 2016
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
6 Sept
2016
Heat detections
878
in a single hotspot: 324 MW
Danger at start
47
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
14.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

14 Sept 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Sept13 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

67891011121314

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
52km/h · peak gust
10%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
    26,707 ha reached on 6 Sept
    2.2 %

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)
6 Sept 33.7 °C 14 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
7 Sept 34.3 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
8 Sept 35.0 °C 10 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
9 Sept 35.8 °C 12 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
10 Sept 34.6 °C 14 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
11 Sept 33.8 °C 13 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
12 Sept 34.7 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
13 Sept 34.7 °C 13 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
14 Sept after 33.8 °C 10 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
15 Sept after 34.6 °C 13 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
16 Sept after 35.6 °C 14 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
17 Sept after 34.7 °C 10 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
18 Sept after 32.0 °C 10 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
19 Sept after 33.9 °C 15 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
20 Sept after 33.3 °C 15 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
21 Sept after 33.4 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
22 Sept after 33.8 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
23 Sept after 34.7 °C 13 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 30 Aug 2016
After · 20 Sept 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 · 878Every 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 6 September 2016 and 13 September 2016: 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 26,497 hectares (265.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Sesheke (26,707 ha, 2.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.8 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 65, 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.