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Chiengi fire, 8 August 2026 Chiengi, Kaputa

Out · last detection 19 Aug 2026, 22:57 UTC

The fire started on 8 August 2026 in Chiengi, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,083 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 129th largest in Luapula since 2016 (of 533 with a page). Number 81 in Zambia in 2026, of 604.

Burnt area
10,083ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
11days
8 Aug 2026 – 18 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
8 Aug
2026
Heat detections
207
in a single hotspot: 51 MW
Danger at start
29
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

19 Aug 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Aug18 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

8910111213141516171819

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

The weather it burned in

29°high
43km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

58% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,780 ha in 2016, 7 ha in 2017, 143 ha in 2018, 998 ha in 2019, 598 ha in 2021, 1,370 ha in 2023, 963 ha in 2024, 3,582 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,887 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Chiengi where it started
    8,432 ha reached on 6 Aug
    2.2 %
  2. Kaputa
    208 ha reached on 16 Aug
    0.0 %

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)
8 Aug 27.4 °C 39 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
9 Aug 27.1 °C 36 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
10 Aug 29.1 °C 31 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
11 Aug 29.2 °C 30 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
12 Aug 28.7 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
13 Aug 27.0 °C 32 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
14 Aug 25.4 °C 44 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
15 Aug 25.0 °C 36 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
16 Aug 25.4 °C 35 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
17 Aug 26.2 °C 34 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
18 Aug 27.0 °C 30 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
19 Aug after 26.8 °C 27 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
20 Aug after 26.3 °C 32 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
21 Aug after 26.7 °C 32 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
22 Aug after 27.7 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
23 Aug after 27.8 °C 37 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
24 Aug after 28.4 °C 36 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
25 Aug after 28.3 °C 38 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
26 Aug after 28.7 °C 34 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
27 Aug after 28.9 °C 35 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
28 Aug after 27.5 °C 37 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 36

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Aug 2026
After · 25 Aug 2026

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 · Copernicus

On 21 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 121 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 76: 5.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak121 µg/m³
Days over the guideline16 days
PM10125 µg/m³
Optical depth0.85
6789101112131415161718192021
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 207Every 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 Chiengi fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 8 August 2026 and 18 August 2026: 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 10,083 hectares (100.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Chiengi (8,432 ha, 2.2 %); Kaputa (208 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.2 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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.