Chitambo fire, 18 October 2026 Chitambo, Serenje
The fire started on 18 October 2026 in Chitambo, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,112 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 380th largest in Central since 2016 (of 401 with a page). Number 572 in Zambia in 2026, of 610.
The power measured by the satellite is low (14.2 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Compare with…
Is it still active?
No detections since 23 Oct 2026, 23:01 UTC. That usually means no flame is visible from space any more, although hotspots may remain. 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.
- Burnt area
- 3,112ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 7days
- 18 Oct 2026 – 24 Oct 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 18 Oct
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 35
- in a single hotspot: 14 MW
- Danger at start
- 33
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 35MW
- 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 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.3 mm on 24 Oct.
This area had burned before
21% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2 ha in 2016, 105 ha in 2019, 32 ha in 2020, 17 ha in 2021, 657 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 657 ha that had burned before.
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 started2,988 ha reached on 18 Oct0.2 %
-
151 ha reached on 20 Oct0.0 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18 Oct | 33.3 °C | 17 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 19 Oct | 35.7 °C | 16 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 20 Oct | 37.0 °C | 15 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 21 Oct | 36.5 °C | 18 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 22 Oct | 37.5 °C | 15 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 23 Oct | 38.0 °C | 17 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 24 Oct | 35.3 °C | 21 % | 48 km/h | 1.3 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 20 October 2026 the air beside the fire reached 67 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 42: 2.8 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 · 35Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 13,474 haSerenje 13 October 2026 · 12 days · 33 km away
- 9,605 haChitambo9 September 2019 · 5 days · 34 km away
- 13,859 haChitambo6 September 2026 · 21 days · 36 km away
- 9,833 haChitambo9 September 2025 · 14 days · 37 km away
- 16,181 haChitambo4 September 2020 · 14 days · 38 km away
- 11,862 haLusangaziOctober 2016 · 13 days · 39 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Chitambo fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 18 October 2026 to 24 October 2026 (7 days). The perimeter dates it from 18 October 2026 to 23 October 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,112 hectares (31.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Chitambo (2,988 ha, 0.2 %); Serenje (151 ha, 0.0 %).
- Is the Chitambo fire still active?
- No fire detections since 23 Oct 2026, 23:01 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 38.0 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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 18 October 2026 to 23 October 2026. 35 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.