Chembe fire, 21 July 2025 Chembe
The fire started on 21 July 2025 in Chembe, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,410 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 139th largest in Luapula since 2016 (of 533 with a page). Number 46 in Zambia in 2025, of 271.
- Burnt area
- 9,410ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 13days
- 21 Jul 2025 – 2 Aug 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 21 Jul
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 412
- in a single hotspot: 79 MW
- Danger at start
- 31
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 3.0GW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
98% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,027 ha in 2016, 2,241 ha in 2017, 4,713 ha in 2018, 6,025 ha in 2019, 4,147 ha in 2020, 1,281 ha in 2021, 759 ha in 2022, 4,303 ha in 2023, 2,559 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 9,176 ha that had burned before.
- 3,440 ha Chembe fire, July 2016 12,378 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,442 ha Chembe fire, July 2018 20,282 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,350 ha Chembe fire, July 2019 3,472 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,245 ha Chembe fire, July 2023 3,415 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,678 ha Chembe fire, August 2018 4,212 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,285 ha Chembe fire, August 2017 8,401 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 669 ha Chembe fire, August 2020 4,063 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 656 ha Chembe fire, July 2024 4,411 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Chembe where it started9,470 ha reached on 18 Jul4.4 %
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 Jul | 23.6 °C | 39 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 22 Jul | 23.8 °C | 42 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 23 Jul | 24.0 °C | 42 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 24 Jul | 24.1 °C | 40 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 25 Jul | 25.6 °C | 37 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 26 Jul | 26.0 °C | 35 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 27 Jul | 24.8 °C | 32 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 28 Jul | 23.4 °C | 34 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 29 Jul | 21.6 °C | 43 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 30 Jul | 23.2 °C | 31 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 31 Jul | 23.8 °C | 28 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 1 Aug | 25.0 °C | 27 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 2 Aug | 24.1 °C | 27 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 3 Aug after | 22.6 °C | 33 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 4 Aug after | 23.5 °C | 30 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 5 Aug after | 24.8 °C | 31 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 6 Aug after | 27.0 °C | 30 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 7 Aug after | 27.1 °C | 27 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 8 Aug after | 27.6 °C | 24 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 9 Aug after | 27.2 °C | 26 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 10 Aug after | 27.6 °C | 20 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 11 Aug after | 27.6 °C | 21 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 12 Aug after | 26.1 °C | 26 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 5 August 2025 the air beside the fire reached 77 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 41: 2.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)
Detections table · 412Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 64,353 haChembe18 July 2026 · 34 days · 17 km away
- 29,893 haMilengi17 August 2019 · 24 days · 22 km away
- 41,279 haMilengi13 August 2021 · 25 days · 25 km away
- 25,575 haMilengi29 August 2020 · 11 days · 31 km away
- 167,326 haMilengi17 July 2026 · 54 days · 37 km away
- 37,052 haMilengi22 August 2017 · 18 days · 39 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Chembe fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 21 July 2025 and 2 August 2025: 13 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 9,410 hectares (94.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Chembe (9,470 ha, 4.4 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 26.0 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, class 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.
Report an error
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.