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Kasama fire, 14 September 2023 Kasama, Lunte

Out · last detection 29 Sept 2023, 11:21 UTC

The fire started on 14 September 2023 in Kasama, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,185 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 109th largest in Northern since 2016 (of 628 with a page). Number 28 in Zambia in 2023, of 165.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Kasama · 2022Kasama · 2017Lunte · 2017Lunte · 2024

Burnt area
8,185ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
16days
14 Sept 2023 – 29 Sept 2023
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
14 Sept
2023
Heat detections
285
in a single hotspot: 82 MW
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
256MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Sept29 Sept
29 Sept 2023

How it evolved, day by day

14 Sept 2023 · 15 MW · 1 16 Sept 2023 · 35 MW · 7 17 Sept 2023 · 113 MW · 7 18 Sept 2023 · 338 MW · 29 19 Sept 2023 · 621 MW · 50 20 Sept 2023 · 296 MW · 31 21 Sept 2023 · 731 MW · 61 22 Sept 2023 · 751 MW · 50 23 Sept 2023 · 172 MW · 20 24 Sept 2023 · 24 MW · 2 25 Sept 2023 · 285 MW · 14 26 Sept 2023 · 74 MW · 9 27 Sept 2023 · 128 MW · 3 29 Sept 2023 · 6 MW · 1
14 Sept 17 Sept 19 Sept 21 Sept 22 Sept 23 Sept 25 Sept 27 Sept

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
49km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

93% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,687 ha in 2016, 3,312 ha in 2017, 2,331 ha in 2018, 1,616 ha in 2019, 3,893 ha in 2020, 2,373 ha in 2021, 4,784 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,619 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 5.2% of the area of London (82 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Kasama where it started
    8,093 ha reached on 14 Sept
    0.8 %
  2. Lunte
    127 ha reached on 20 Sept
    0.0 %

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 2025
Built-up area6.7 ha
Residents≈ 750

Inside the perimeter there were about 6.7 hectares of built-up land and about 750 residents (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)
14 Sept 27.6 °C 32 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
15 Sept 29.2 °C 28 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
16 Sept 31.0 °C 23 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
17 Sept 31.7 °C 21 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
18 Sept 31.0 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
19 Sept 30.3 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
20 Sept 31.3 °C 22 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
21 Sept 31.7 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
22 Sept 30.9 °C 22 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
23 Sept 31.2 °C 21 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
24 Sept 30.7 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
25 Sept 30.8 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
26 Sept 32.9 °C 19 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
27 Sept 31.7 °C 24 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
28 Sept 31.2 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 42
29 Sept 31.6 °C 25 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
30 Sept after 31.5 °C 25 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
1 Oct after 32.4 °C 23 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
2 Oct after 32.5 °C 15 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
3 Oct after 29.5 °C 29 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
4 Oct after 29.7 °C 27 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
5 Oct after 30.4 °C 31 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
6 Oct after 31.1 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
7 Oct after 31.6 °C 27 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
8 Oct after 33.8 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
9 Oct after 33.8 °C 14 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Sept 2023
After · 6 Oct 2023

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 17 September 2023 the air beside the fire reached 31 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 21: 1.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak31 µg/m³
Days over the guideline9 days
PM1046 µg/m³
Optical depth0.88
14151617181920212223242526
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 · 285Every 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Zambia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Kasama fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 14 September 2023 to 29 September 2023 (16 days). The perimeter dates it from 16 September 2023 to 23 September 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 8,185 hectares (81.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Kasama (8,093 ha, 0.8 %); Lunte (127 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.9 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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.
  1. Last day with fire: 23 September 2023 → 29 September 2023.
  2. Start date: 16 September 2023 → 14 September 2023.

RSS Changes to this page

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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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 16 September 2023 to 23 September 2023. 285 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.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.