How long did the Kabompo fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 17 August 2026 to 1 September 2026 (16 days). The perimeter dates it from 17 August 2026 to 25 August 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,830 hectares (38.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 3 municipalities: Kabompo (3,453 ha, 0.5 %); Manyinga (402 ha, 0.0 %); Mufumbwe (0 ha, 0.0 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 34.2 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, class Extreme.

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 · 2026-08-17 → 2026-09-01

Kabompo fire, 17 August 2026 Kabompo, Manyinga, Mufumbwe

Out · last detection 1 Sept 2026, 23:54 UTC

The fire started on 17 August 2026 in Kabompo, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,830 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 160th largest in North-Western since 2016 (of 286 with a page). Number 370 in Zambia in 2026, of 610.

Burnt area: 3,830ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 16days; 17 Aug 2026 – 1 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit: 3; districts
Started on: 17 Aug; 2026
Heat detections: 96; in a single hotspot: 110 MW
Danger at start: 43; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 1.1GW; sum of detected power

Play back 1 Sept 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Aug1 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

171920212223242527282930311

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

The weather it burned in

34°high

48km/h · peak gust

10%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 7.2 mm on 5 Sept.

This area had burned before

70% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 83 ha in 2016, 268 ha in 2017, 30 ha in 2018, 931 ha in 2019, 618 ha in 2020, 2,051 ha in 2024, 1,577 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,663 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Kabompo where it started

3,453 ha reached on 17 Aug

0.5 %
Manyinga

402 ha reached on 17 Aug

0.0 %
Mufumbwe

0 ha

0.0 %

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)
17 Aug	28.3 °C	13 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
18 Aug	30.0 °C	12 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
19 Aug	30.0 °C	10 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
20 Aug	29.9 °C	14 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
21 Aug	30.3 °C	15 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
22 Aug	31.4 °C	12 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
23 Aug	31.7 °C	16 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 50
24 Aug	31.5 °C	17 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
25 Aug	31.7 °C	17 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
26 Aug	32.5 °C	16 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
27 Aug	31.5 °C	19 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
28 Aug	30.2 °C	18 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 50
29 Aug	31.1 °C	16 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
30 Aug	32.9 °C	15 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
31 Aug	34.0 °C	12 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
1 Sept	34.2 °C	12 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
2 Sept after	33.4 °C	12 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
3 Sept after	34.5 °C	12 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
4 Sept after	33.8 °C	22 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
5 Sept after	24.4 °C	58 %	32 km/h	7.2 mm	Very low 4

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 10 Aug 2026

After · 8 Sept 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 3 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 175 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 70: 4.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak175 µg/m³

Days over the guideline18 days

PM10180 µg/m³

Optical depth1.12

WHO 15

15161718192021222324252627282930311234

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 · 96Every 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 Kabompo fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 17 August 2026 to 1 September 2026 (16 days). The perimeter dates it from 17 August 2026 to 25 August 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,830 hectares (38.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 3 municipalities: Kabompo (3,453 ha, 0.5 %); Manyinga (402 ha, 0.0 %); Mufumbwe (0 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 34.2 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, class Extreme.
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