The fire started on 18 August 2024 in Chipili, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 37 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 104,121 hectares from heat detections, spread across 4 municipalities.
This page is probably a fire complex, not a single fire. GWIS merges into one perimeter the fires that touch over weeks, which in large burning seasons can join dozens of separate fires. The total area is reliable; the origin and dates refer to the whole complex.
Other fire pages in the same area and on the same dates:
It is the 9th largest in Luapula since 2016 (of 449 with a page). The largest in Zambia in 2024, of 160.
Union of 4 GWIS (Copernicus) perimeters: overlapping areas count once.
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
18 Aug 2024 to 23 Sept 2024: first and last day with fire on the page.
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 143 MW.
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
Total radiative power on 3 September 2024; hotspots that day: 731.
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 60.
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
High of 32.4 °C and minimum humidity of 28% on 20 September 2024; gusts of 60 km/h on 31 August 2024.
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Move the slider to see which area the page published each day.
A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024-08-18 | 69 | 1,361 | 26.4 | 13.6 | 30 | 17.4 | 39.2 | 0 | 40.3 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2024-08-19 | 92 | 1,060 | 26.7 | 13.7 | 29 | 18.8 | 42.1 | 0 | 44.3 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2024-08-20 | 61 | 1,090 | 26.1 | 12.9 | 32 | 19.8 | 43.9 | 0 | 45.2 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2024-08-21 | 86 | 1,417 | 25.8 | 14.4 | 32 | 19.9 | 43.9 | 0 | 45.8 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2024-08-22 | 110 | 1,379 | 26.4 | 13.5 | 28 | 15.4 | 36.4 | 0 | 40.5 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2024-08-23 | 11 | 175 | 25.6 | 13.8 | 30 | 23.3 | 50 | 0 | 51.2 | extremo | 1 |
| 2024-08-24 | 11 | 45 | 26.1 | 14.6 | 32 | 22.3 | 47.9 | 0 | 47.5 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2024-08-25 | 22 | 232 | 25.9 | 13.5 | 32 | 20.9 | 45.4 | 0 | 46.1 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2024-08-26 | 41 | 463 | 26.5 | 13.3 | 24 | 17.5 | 40 | 0 | 44.1 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2024-08-27 | 57 | 599 | 27.8 | 11 | 30 | 12.9 | 31.3 | 0 | 37.7 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-08-28 | 113 | 1,364 | 29.2 | 12.6 | 32 | 12.8 | 32 | 0 | 38.7 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2024-08-29 | 177 | 1,638 | 29.7 | 14.5 | 32 | 12.6 | 33.1 | 0 | 39.5 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2024-08-30 | 171 | 1,873 | 28.3 | 15.7 | 41 | 18.6 | 41.8 | 0.1 | 45.4 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2024-08-31 | 67 | 656 | 27.8 | 18 | 40 | 30.1 | 60.1 | 0 | 51.2 | extremo | 1 |
| 2024-09-01 | 105 | 1,085 | 24.5 | 16.3 | 47 | 27 | 51.8 | 0.2 | 36.2 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-09-02 | 366 | 5,059 | 26.5 | 13.9 | 32 | 20.1 | 44.3 | 0 | 38.2 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2024-09-03 | 731 | 10,096 | 25.3 | 13 | 27 | 21.5 | 46.1 | 0 | 42.2 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2024-09-04 | 641 | 8,994 | 25.9 | 12.8 | 27 | 20.3 | 43.6 | 0 | 40.4 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2024-09-05 | 303 | 3,626 | 26.9 | 12.5 | 32 | 16 | 36.4 | 0 | 35.7 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-09-06 | 218 | 2,191 | 28.5 | 13.4 | 31 | 15.4 | 35.6 | 0 | 37.5 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-09-07 | 249 | 2,502 | 29.5 | 13.7 | 29 | 16.9 | 37.4 | 0 | 39.6 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2024-09-08 | 48 | 409 | 29.6 | 15.7 | 31 | 16.7 | 38.2 | 0 | 39.2 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2024-09-09 | 73 | 497 | 30.6 | 16.7 | 29 | 13.5 | 32.4 | 0 | 35.5 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-09-10 | 53 | 406 | 30.1 | 15.6 | 31 | 16.8 | 38.5 | 0 | 42.7 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2024-09-11 | 107 | 1,038 | 30.4 | 18 | 28 | 21.5 | 46.8 | 0 | 52.2 | extremo | 1 |
| 2024-09-12 | 190 | 2,445 | 30.3 | 17.5 | 27 | 21.5 | 46.1 | 0 | 48.8 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2024-09-13 | 67 | 873 | 31.5 | 17.1 | 20 | 17.4 | 39.2 | 0 | 48.6 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2024-09-14 | 36 | 394 | 31.5 | 17.1 | 18 | 19.5 | 43.2 | 0 | 56.7 | extremo | 1 |
| 2024-09-15 | 11 | 137 | 30.1 | 15.6 | 21 | 17.1 | 38.5 | 0 | 51 | extremo | 1 |
| 2024-09-16 | 29 | 259 | 30.1 | 15.2 | 23 | 14.7 | 34.6 | 0 | 46.1 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2024-09-17 | 27 | 296 | 31.6 | 14.3 | 23 | 14.1 | 33.5 | 0 | 47.5 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2024-09-18 | 31 | 331 | 31.1 | 15.2 | 27 | 13.5 | 32.4 | 0 | 45.1 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2024-09-19 | 3 | 18 | 31.4 | 15.1 | 28 | 11.1 | 27.4 | 0 | 39.3 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2024-09-20 | 30 | 345 | 32.4 | 14.7 | 28 | 10.3 | 25.6 | 0.1 | 31.8 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-09-21 | 5 | 23 | 31.9 | 18 | 29 | 15.9 | 34.9 | 0 | 49 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2024-09-22 | 1 | 2 | 29.7 | 17.6 | 25 | 20.4 | 44.3 | 0 | 57.7 | extremo | 1 |
| 2024-09-23 | 7 | 41 | 27.9 | 17.6 | 38 | 25.1 | 54.4 | 0 | 61 | extremo | 1 |
| 2024-09-24 | 0 | 0 | 27.3 | 17.1 | 41 | 24.5 | 50 | 0.4 | 43.1 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2024-09-25 | 0 | 0 | 29.7 | 17.5 | 32 | 16.8 | 38.5 | 0 | 39.6 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2024-09-26 | 0 | 0 | 31.4 | 16.1 | 22 | 14.2 | 34.2 | 0 | 43.2 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2024-09-27 | 0 | 0 | 32.3 | 14.6 | 20 | 14.1 | 32 | 0 | 48.1 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2024-09-28 | 0 | 0 | 32 | 16.6 | 24 | 15.1 | 36 | 0 | 53.2 | extremo | 0 |
| 2024-09-29 | 0 | 0 | 32 | 15.2 | 24 | 11 | 27.7 | 0 | 44.1 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2024-09-30 | 0 | 0 | 33.2 | 16.3 | 28 | 9.8 | 24.5 | 0 | 40 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2024-10-01 | 0 | 0 | 33.2 | 18.4 | 29 | 13.1 | 27.7 | 0 | 35.9 | alto | 0 |
| 2024-10-02 | 0 | 0 | 30.7 | 18.1 | 31 | 22.2 | 45 | 0 | 56.7 | extremo | 0 |
| 2024-10-03 | 0 | 0 | 26.5 | 18.8 | 47 | 29.5 | 60.8 | 0.4 | 54.9 | extremo | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: GWIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 74,387 ha in 2016, 68,379 ha in 2017, 43,692 ha in 2018, 69,531 ha in 2019, 75,183 ha in 2020, 70,066 ha in 2021, 69,456 ha in 2022, 66,780 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 104,259 ha that had burned before.
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.
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)
Started with 60 days without rain: 91 % of the area in Zambia
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18 Aug | 26.4 °C | 30 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 19 Aug | 26.7 °C | 29 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 20 Aug | 26.1 °C | 32 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 21 Aug | 25.8 °C | 32 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 22 Aug | 26.4 °C | 28 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 23 Aug | 25.6 °C | 30 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 24 Aug | 26.1 °C | 32 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 25 Aug | 25.9 °C | 32 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 26 Aug | 26.5 °C | 24 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 27 Aug | 27.8 °C | 30 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 28 Aug | 29.2 °C | 32 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 29 Aug | 29.7 °C | 32 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 30 Aug | 28.3 °C | 41 % | 42 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 45 |
| 31 Aug | 27.8 °C | 40 % | 60 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 1 Sept | 24.5 °C | 47 % | 52 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 36 |
| 2 Sept | 26.5 °C | 32 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 3 Sept | 25.3 °C | 27 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 4 Sept | 25.9 °C | 27 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 5 Sept | 26.9 °C | 32 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 6 Sept | 28.5 °C | 31 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 7 Sept | 29.5 °C | 29 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 8 Sept | 29.6 °C | 31 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 9 Sept | 30.6 °C | 29 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 10 Sept | 30.1 °C | 31 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 11 Sept | 30.4 °C | 28 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 12 Sept | 30.3 °C | 27 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 13 Sept | 31.5 °C | 20 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 14 Sept | 31.5 °C | 18 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 15 Sept | 30.1 °C | 21 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 16 Sept | 30.1 °C | 23 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 17 Sept | 31.6 °C | 23 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 18 Sept | 31.1 °C | 27 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 19 Sept | 31.4 °C | 28 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 20 Sept | 32.4 °C | 28 % | 26 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 32 |
| 21 Sept | 31.9 °C | 29 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 22 Sept | 29.7 °C | 25 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 23 Sept | 27.9 °C | 38 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 24 Sept after | 27.3 °C | 41 % | 50 km/h | 0.4 mm | Very high 43 |
| 25 Sept after | 29.7 °C | 32 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 26 Sept after | 31.4 °C | 22 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 27 Sept after | 32.3 °C | 20 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 28 Sept after | 32.0 °C | 24 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 29 Sept after | 32.0 °C | 24 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 30 Sept after | 33.2 °C | 28 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 1 Oct after | 33.2 °C | 29 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 2 Oct after | 30.7 °C | 31 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 3 Oct after | 26.5 °C | 47 % | 61 km/h | 0.4 mm | Extreme 55 |
It started with an FWI of 40.3, a minimum humidity of 30% and more than two months without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 36.
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
It was 16.9 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 37 days, against 17 days.
Only 2 of its 36 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 33 of 36, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.9 mm.
This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it
It was considered over on 23 Sept, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 3 of 36, with a median of 2.9 mm.
Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)
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.
On 5 September 2024 the air beside the fire reached 62 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 38: 2.6 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)
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
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
RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version
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.
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.