Kafue fire, September 2023 Kafue, Rufunsa, Luangwa
The fire started on 17 September 2023 in Kafue, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,253 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 65th largest in Lusaka since 2016 (of 79 with a page). Number 143 in Zambia in 2023, of 165.
The power measured by the satellite is low (15.0 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…
- Burnt area
- 3,253ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 9days
- 17 Sept 2023 – 25 Sept 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- districts
- Started on
- 17 Sept
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 203
- in a single hotspot: 15 MW
- Danger at start
- 49
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 113MW
- 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 43 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
99% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,279 ha in 2016, 3,327 ha in 2018, 1,079 ha in 2019, 2,392 ha in 2021, 276 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,220 ha that had burned before.
- 3,327 ha Kafue fire, September 2018 32,071 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,279 ha Rufunsa fire, September 2016 15,943 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,409 ha Rufunsa fire, November 2021 7,107 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,079 ha Rufunsa fire, October 2019 5,150 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
-
Kafue where it started1,788 ha reached on 20 Sept0.4 %
-
1,487 ha reached on 19 Sept0.2 %
-
0 ha reached on 25 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.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2025Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19 Sept | 34.3 °C | 28 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 20 Sept | 35.2 °C | 23 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 21 Sept | 36.8 °C | 19 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 22 Sept | 36.0 °C | 23 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 23 Sept | 36.1 °C | 27 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 24 Sept | 36.9 °C | 21 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 25 Sept | 37.1 °C | 24 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 26 Sept after | 38.4 °C | 20 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 27 Sept after | 36.6 °C | 23 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 28 Sept after | 36.1 °C | 30 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 29 Sept after | 36.4 °C | 31 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 30 Sept after | 37.0 °C | 26 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 1 Oct after | 38.4 °C | 22 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 2 Oct after | 34.4 °C | 33 % | 65 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 3 Oct after | 30.2 °C | 40 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 4 Oct after | 32.6 °C | 27 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 5 Oct after | 34.9 °C | 27 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
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 18 September 2023 the air beside the fire reached 35 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 24: 1.6 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 · 203Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 32,071 haKafueSeptember 2018 · 19 days · 7 km away
- 15,943 haRufunsa1 September 2016 · 32 days · 9 km away
- 14,407 haKafue24 September 2022 · 29 days · 11 km away
- 15,689 haLuangwaOctober 2021 · 37 days · 22 km away
- 11,002 haRufunsaSeptember 2019 · 20 days · 24 km away
- 23,797 haRufunsaSeptember 2018 · 28 days · 28 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Kafue fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 17 September 2023 to 25 September 2023 (9 days). The perimeter dates it from 19 September 2023 to 25 September 2023.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,253 hectares (32.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Kafue (1,788 ha, 0.4 %); Rufunsa (1,487 ha, 0.2 %); Luangwa (0 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.1 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 52 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
History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Start date: 19 September 2023 → 17 September 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 19 September 2023 to 25 September 2023. 203 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.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.