Chitambo fire, 30 August 2023 Chitambo, Lavushimanda
The fire started on 30 August 2023 in Chitambo, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 22 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 21,401 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 15th largest in Central since 2016 (of 401 with a page). Number 4 in Zambia in 2023, of 165.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 21,401ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 22days
- 30 Aug 2023 – 20 Sept 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 30 Aug
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 1,106
- in a single hotspot: 192 MW
- Danger at start
- 10
- Low · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 814MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 12,763 ha in 2016, 9,716 ha in 2017, 12,048 ha in 2018, 8,210 ha in 2019, 13,770 ha in 2020, 13,731 ha in 2021, 10,573 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 20,665 ha that had burned before.
- 13,025 ha Chitambo fire, August 2021 39,948 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 10,936 ha Chitambo fire, September 2020 25,336 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 10,454 ha Chitambo fire, September 2018 25,250 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 10,283 ha Chitambo fire, September 2016 18,853 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 7,413 ha Chitambo fire, September 2017 11,277 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 6,319 ha Chitambo fire, September 2019 12,241 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,655 ha Chitambo fire, September 2022 7,773 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,140 ha Chitambo fire, September 2022 6,359 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
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.
What happened to each town
-
Chitambo where it started21,146 ha reached on 30 Aug1.8 %
-
405 ha reached on 8 Sept0.0 %
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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 30 Aug | 19.4 °C | 49 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 31 Aug | 23.1 °C | 41 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 1 Sept | 24.8 °C | 36 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 2 Sept | 25.2 °C | 34 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 3 Sept | 26.3 °C | 29 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 4 Sept | 24.6 °C | 34 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 5 Sept | 26.0 °C | 33 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 6 Sept | 28.4 °C | 30 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 7 Sept | 27.5 °C | 25 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 8 Sept | 26.7 °C | 26 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 9 Sept | 25.2 °C | 26 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 10 Sept | 25.9 °C | 30 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 11 Sept | 29.7 °C | 26 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 12 Sept | 29.5 °C | 25 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 13 Sept | 25.0 °C | 42 % | 57 km/h | 1.8 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 14 Sept | 22.3 °C | 50 % | 42 km/h | 1.1 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 15 Sept | 26.0 °C | 35 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 16 Sept | 28.1 °C | 25 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 17 Sept | 29.2 °C | 18 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 18 Sept | 27.4 °C | 30 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 19 Sept | 27.3 °C | 25 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 20 Sept | 28.7 °C | 23 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 21 Sept after | 28.8 °C | 23 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 22 Sept after | 27.6 °C | 31 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 23 Sept after | 27.9 °C | 28 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 24 Sept after | 28.7 °C | 27 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 25 Sept after | 28.5 °C | 29 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 26 Sept after | 30.8 °C | 18 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 27 Sept after | 30.8 °C | 23 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 28 Sept after | 28.9 °C | 33 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 29 Sept after | 28.5 °C | 32 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 30 Sept after | 28.8 °C | 30 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
Before and after, from space
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.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 11 September 2023 the air beside the fire reached 58 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 39: 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)
Detections table · 1,106Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Chitambo fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 30 August 2023 to 20 September 2023 (22 days). The perimeter dates it from 6 September 2023 to 13 September 2023.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 21,401 hectares (214.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Chitambo (21,146 ha, 1.8 %); Lavushimanda (405 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 29.7 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 57 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
History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 13 September 2023 → 20 September 2023.
- Start date: 6 September 2023 → 30 August 2023.
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.
Report an error
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 6 September 2023 to 13 September 2023. 1,106 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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.