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Chilubi fire, 11 August 2025 Chilubi

Out · last detection 23 Aug 2025, 11:09 UTC

The fire started on 11 August 2025 in Chilubi, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,057 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 615th largest in Northern since 2016 (of 628 with a page). Number 265 in Zambia in 2025, of 271.

Burnt area
3,057ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
11 Aug 2025 – 22 Aug 2025
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
11 Aug
2025
Heat detections
79
in a single hotspot: 55 MW
Danger at start
35
High · FWI index
Energy released
881MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

23 Aug 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Aug22 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

1112131415161920212223

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
37km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

77% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 885 ha in 2016, 277 ha in 2017, 105 ha in 2018, 201 ha in 2019, 176 ha in 2020, 1,428 ha in 2022, 749 ha in 2023, 1,236 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,365 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Chilubi where it started
    3,073 ha reached on 11 Aug
    0.6 %

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)
11 Aug 27.5 °C 26 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
12 Aug 26.4 °C 28 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
13 Aug 26.1 °C 31 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
14 Aug 27.3 °C 30 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
15 Aug 27.8 °C 32 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
16 Aug 28.1 °C 30 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
17 Aug 28.3 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
18 Aug 26.9 °C 24 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
19 Aug 26.9 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
20 Aug 27.0 °C 26 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
21 Aug 27.6 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
22 Aug 28.6 °C 23 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
23 Aug after 28.2 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
24 Aug after 28.4 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
25 Aug after 30.9 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
26 Aug after 31.7 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
27 Aug after 28.8 °C 24 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
28 Aug after 30.4 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
29 Aug after 30.3 °C 17 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
30 Aug after 29.4 °C 20 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
31 Aug after 29.0 °C 23 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
1 Sept after 29.6 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Aug 2025
After · 29 Aug 2025

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 25 August 2025 the air beside the fire reached 102 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 62: 4.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak102 µg/m³
Days over the guideline16 days
PM10104 µg/m³
Optical depth0.87
910111213141516171819202122232425
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 · 79Every 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 Chilubi fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 11 August 2025 and 22 August 2025: 12 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 3,057 hectares (30.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Chilubi (3,073 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 28.6 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 37 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.

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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.