How long did the Chilubi fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 6 August 2026 and 24 August 2026: 19 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 8,035 hectares (80.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Chilubi (8,079 ha, 1.6 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 29.9 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 44 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.

ZM · Zambia · 2026-08-06 → 2026-08-24

Chilubi fire, 6 August 2026 Chilubi

Out · last detection 25 Aug 2026, 11:38 UTC

The fire started on 6 August 2026 in Chilubi, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,035 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 115th largest in Northern since 2016 (of 628 with a page). Number 116 in Zambia in 2026, of 604.

Burnt area: 8,035ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 19days; 6 Aug 2026 – 24 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 6 Aug; 2026
Heat detections: 130; in a single hotspot: 54 MW
Danger at start: 28; High · FWI index
Energy released: 1.6GW; sum of detected power

Play back 25 Aug 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Aug24 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

67812141719202125

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

The weather it burned in

30°high

44km/h · peak gust

25%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: 3,358 ha in 2016, 1,782 ha in 2017, 1,729 ha in 2018, 1,627 ha in 2019, 1,484 ha in 2020, 2,776 ha in 2022, 1,974 ha in 2023, 4,484 ha in 2024, 3,948 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,155 ha that had burned before.

2,661 ha Chilubi fire, August 2025 3,057 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Chilubi where it started

8,079 ha reached on 6 Aug

1.6 %

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	Danger (FWI)
6 Aug	26.6 °C	41 %	25 km/h	High 28
7 Aug	27.1 °C	44 %	30 km/h	High 29
8 Aug	27.4 °C	41 %	35 km/h	High 29
9 Aug	27.6 °C	37 %	31 km/h	High 27
10 Aug	29.5 °C	29 %	34 km/h	High 32
11 Aug	29.9 °C	27 %	33 km/h	High 34
12 Aug	29.4 °C	26 %	42 km/h	Very high 38
13 Aug	26.6 °C	40 %	44 km/h	High 35
14 Aug	25.0 °C	40 %	44 km/h	High 34
15 Aug	25.0 °C	37 %	34 km/h	High 30
16 Aug	25.4 °C	32 %	28 km/h	High 30
17 Aug	26.3 °C	29 %	28 km/h	High 30
18 Aug	26.9 °C	26 %	28 km/h	High 34
19 Aug	26.7 °C	25 %	35 km/h	High 34
20 Aug	26.8 °C	31 %	35 km/h	High 34
21 Aug	27.2 °C	30 %	36 km/h	High 35
22 Aug	28.5 °C	29 %	31 km/h	High 34
23 Aug	27.6 °C	37 %	28 km/h	High 31
24 Aug	28.7 °C	35 %	41 km/h	High 36
25 Aug after	28.1 °C	39 %	34 km/h	High 32
26 Aug after	29.2 °C	37 %	34 km/h	High 33
27 Aug after	29.0 °C	36 %	42 km/h	High 36
28 Aug after	27.9 °C	36 %	43 km/h	High 37
29 Aug after	28.7 °C	36 %	40 km/h	High 35
30 Aug after	29.3 °C	30 %	39 km/h	High 35
31 Aug after	29.6 °C	32 %	38 km/h	High 35
1 Sept after	29.5 °C	34 %	38 km/h	High 34
2 Sept after	29.8 °C	34 %	36 km/h	High 34
3 Sept after	30.2 °C	31 %	37 km/h	High 35

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 30 Jul 2026

After · 31 Aug 2026

Before After

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 20 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 132 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 62: 4.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak132 µg/m³

Days over the guideline19 days

PM10134 µg/m³

Optical depth0.97

WHO 15

456789101112131415161718192021222324252627

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 · 130Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Zambia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Chilubi fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 6 August 2026 and 24 August 2026: 19 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 8,035 hectares (80.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Chilubi (8,079 ha, 1.6 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 29.9 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 44 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

Where it burned