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Chilubi fire, 22 August 2025 Chilubi

Out · last detection 31 Aug 2025, 23:06 UTC

The fire started on 22 August 2025 in Chilubi, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,162 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 573th largest in Northern since 2016 (of 628 with a page). Number 244 in Zambia in 2025, of 271.

Burnt area
3,162ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
22 Aug 2025 – 31 Aug 2025
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
22 Aug
2025
Heat detections
119
in a single hotspot: 45 MW
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

31 Aug 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Aug31 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

22232425262728293031

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
44km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

89% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,863 ha in 2016, 967 ha in 2017, 1,234 ha in 2018, 1,954 ha in 2019, 2,145 ha in 2020, 27 ha in 2021, 1,034 ha in 2022, 2,184 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,805 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Chilubi where it started
    3,181 ha reached on 20 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)
22 Aug 28.5 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
23 Aug 28.4 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
24 Aug 28.5 °C 26 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
25 Aug 31.0 °C 28 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
26 Aug 31.8 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
27 Aug 29.1 °C 23 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
28 Aug 30.6 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
29 Aug 30.3 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
30 Aug 29.6 °C 18 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
31 Aug 29.2 °C 22 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
1 Sept after 29.6 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
2 Sept after 28.6 °C 24 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
3 Sept after 28.4 °C 25 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
4 Sept after 29.8 °C 17 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
5 Sept after 29.9 °C 20 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
6 Sept after 30.5 °C 20 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
7 Sept after 30.7 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
8 Sept after 30.7 °C 21 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
9 Sept after 31.0 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
10 Sept after 31.3 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Aug 2025
After · 7 Sept 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 28 August 2025 the air beside the fire reached 67 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 36: 2.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak67 µg/m³
Days over the guideline11 days
PM1068 µg/m³
Optical depth0.84
202122232425262728293031123
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 · 119Every 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 22 August 2025 and 31 August 2025: 10 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 3,162 hectares (31.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Chilubi (3,181 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.8 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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.