Kasama fire, 17 August 2025 Kasama, Shiwang'Andu
The fire started on 17 August 2025 in Kasama, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 35 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 18,829 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 24th largest in Northern since 2016 (of 629 with a page). Number 21 in Zambia in 2025, of 271.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Kasama · 2016Kasama · 2022Kasama · 2017Kasama · 2021
- Burnt area
- 18,829ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 35days
- 17 Aug 2025 – 20 Sept 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 17 Aug
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 572
- in a single hotspot: 100 MW
- Danger at start
- 35
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 209MW
- 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 more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
96% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 7,913 ha in 2016, 12,344 ha in 2017, 3,440 ha in 2018, 9,956 ha in 2019, 12,202 ha in 2020, 6,625 ha in 2021, 8,355 ha in 2022, 8,760 ha in 2023, 2,072 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 18,059 ha that had burned before.
- 6,361 ha Kasama fire, September 2016 7,472 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,412 ha Kasama fire, September 2022 5,510 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,273 ha Kasama fire, September 2017 5,274 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,869 ha Kasama fire, September 2021 3,310 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 347 ha Kasama fire, September 2019 3,052 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
-
Kasama where it started18,925 ha reached on 18 Aug1.8 %
-
37 ha reached on 20 Aug0.0 %
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 were about 28 hectares of built-up land and about 1,800 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17 Aug | 28.4 °C | 22 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 18 Aug | 27.0 °C | 23 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 19 Aug | 26.9 °C | 22 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 20 Aug | 27.0 °C | 26 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 21 Aug | 27.5 °C | 25 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 22 Aug | 28.4 °C | 24 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 23 Aug | 28.0 °C | 21 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 24 Aug | 28.3 °C | 27 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 25 Aug | 30.6 °C | 29 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 26 Aug | 31.3 °C | 20 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 27 Aug | 28.4 °C | 25 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 28 Aug | 30.3 °C | 17 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 29 Aug | 30.0 °C | 16 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 30 Aug | 29.1 °C | 20 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 31 Aug | 28.9 °C | 22 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 1 Sept | 29.4 °C | 18 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 2 Sept | 28.5 °C | 25 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 3 Sept | 28.3 °C | 25 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 4 Sept | 29.6 °C | 17 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 5 Sept | 29.7 °C | 18 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 6 Sept | 30.5 °C | 20 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 7 Sept | 30.6 °C | 19 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 8 Sept | 30.6 °C | 20 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 9 Sept | 30.9 °C | 23 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 10 Sept | 30.7 °C | 26 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 11 Sept | 30.7 °C | 25 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 12 Sept | 31.2 °C | 19 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 13 Sept | 30.9 °C | 22 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 14 Sept | 31.3 °C | 25 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 15 Sept | 32.0 °C | 19 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 16 Sept | 32.4 °C | 16 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 17 Sept | 32.7 °C | 17 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 18 Sept | 32.0 °C | 21 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 19 Sept | 32.1 °C | 28 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 20 Sept | 31.1 °C | 27 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 21 Sept after | 29.2 °C | 30 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 22 Sept after | 31.7 °C | 26 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 23 Sept after | 32.5 °C | 23 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 24 Sept after | 32.4 °C | 19 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 25 Sept after | 32.4 °C | 23 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 26 Sept after | 32.6 °C | 21 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 27 Sept after | 32.7 °C | 21 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 28 Sept after | 33.4 °C | 21 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 29 Sept after | 34.9 °C | 16 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 30 Sept after | 34.1 °C | 22 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
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 6 September 2025 the air beside the fire reached 122 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 63: 4.2 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 · 572Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 30,143 haShiwang'Andu1 September 2021 · 13 days · 11 km away
- 58,326 haShiwang'Andu3 September 2024 · 26 days · 19 km away
- 70,260 haShiwang'Andu6 September 2017 · 24 days · 20 km away
- 46,304 haShiwang'Andu3 September 2020 · 13 days · 27 km away
- 57,216 haShiwang'Andu4 September 2016 · 19 days · 29 km away
- 135,612 haShiwang'Andu19 August 2025 · 42 days · 38 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Kasama fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 17 August 2025 to 20 September 2025 (35 days). The perimeter dates it from 24 August 2025 to 14 September 2025.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 18,829 hectares (188.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Kasama (18,925 ha, 1.8 %); Shiwang'Andu (37 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 32.7 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, 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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 14 September 2025 → 20 September 2025.
- Start date: 24 August 2025 → 17 August 2025.
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 24 August 2025 to 14 September 2025. 572 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.