Skip to content
worldfires
ZM · Zambia · –

Kasama fire, 19 August 2025 Shiwang'Andu, Kasama

Out · last detection 30 Sept 2025, 10:58 UTC

The fire started on 19 August 2025 in Kasama, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 42 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 135,612 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

This page is probably a fire complex, not a single fire. GWIS merges into one perimeter the fires that touch over weeks, which in large burning seasons can join dozens of separate fires. The total area is reliable; the origin and dates refer to the whole complex.

Other fire pages in the same area and on the same dates:

Number 3 in Zambia in 2025, of 257.

GWIS near-real-time perimeter, from the layer that changed in August 2025: this fire is not compared with fires from earlier years, because since then the GWIS layer gives more and larger perimeters.

Burnt area
135,612ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
42days
19 Aug 2025 – 29 Sept 2025
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
19 Aug
2025
Heat detections
4,721
in a single hotspot: 241 MW
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
1.3GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Aug29 Sept
30 Sept 2025

How it evolved, day by day

19 Aug 2025 · 133 MW · 13 20 Aug 2025 · 25 MW · 7 21 Aug 2025 · 163 MW · 16 22 Aug 2025 · 146 MW · 34 23 Aug 2025 · 91 MW · 18 24 Aug 2025 · 111 MW · 11 25 Aug 2025 · 1,216 MW · 73 26 Aug 2025 · 2,108 MW · 89 27 Aug 2025 · 898 MW · 85 28 Aug 2025 · 647 MW · 56 29 Aug 2025 · 277 MW · 39 30 Aug 2025 · 1,535 MW · 134 31 Aug 2025 · 1,601 MW · 123 1 Sept 2025 · 3,223 MW · 185 2 Sept 2025 · 2,206 MW · 220 3 Sept 2025 · 1,685 MW · 133 4 Sept 2025 · 10,717 MW · 592 5 Sept 2025 · 5,453 MW · 454 6 Sept 2025 · 3,181 MW · 308 7 Sept 2025 · 2,027 MW · 228 8 Sept 2025 · 1,547 MW · 166 9 Sept 2025 · 758 MW · 113 10 Sept 2025 · 1,042 MW · 111 11 Sept 2025 · 698 MW · 100 12 Sept 2025 · 3,440 MW · 374 13 Sept 2025 · 2,473 MW · 226 14 Sept 2025 · 135 MW · 17 15 Sept 2025 · 2,009 MW · 115 16 Sept 2025 · 2,228 MW · 167 17 Sept 2025 · 1,388 MW · 136 18 Sept 2025 · 410 MW · 64 19 Sept 2025 · 181 MW · 30 20 Sept 2025 · 370 MW · 32 21 Sept 2025 · 1 MW · 2 22 Sept 2025 · 352 MW · 47 23 Sept 2025 · 239 MW · 18 24 Sept 2025 · 168 MW · 20 25 Sept 2025 · 591 MW · 54 26 Sept 2025 · 476 MW · 44 27 Sept 2025 · 325 MW · 25 28 Sept 2025 · 244 MW · 25 29 Sept 2025 · 203 MW · 11 30 Sept 2025 · 54 MW · 6
19 Aug 28 Aug 4 Sept 15 Sept 24 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

34°high
54km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 68,179 ha in 2016, 64,452 ha in 2017, 29,763 ha in 2018, 49,798 ha in 2019, 59,765 ha in 2020, 59,509 ha in 2021, 52,636 ha in 2022, 34,913 ha in 2023, 57,186 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 130,964 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 86% of the area of London (1,356 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. 136,301 ha
    15 %
  2. Kasama where it started
    54 ha
    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.

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)

Started with 60 days without rain: 91 % of the area in Zambia

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
19 Aug 26.2 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
20 Aug 26.4 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
21 Aug 26.7 °C 26 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
22 Aug 27.7 °C 26 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
23 Aug 27.0 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
24 Aug 27.6 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
25 Aug 30.2 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
26 Aug 30.4 °C 21 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
27 Aug 27.4 °C 27 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
28 Aug 29.7 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
29 Aug 28.9 °C 18 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
30 Aug 28.0 °C 22 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
31 Aug 28.1 °C 22 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
1 Sept 28.7 °C 19 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
2 Sept 27.7 °C 26 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
3 Sept 27.7 °C 25 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
4 Sept 28.9 °C 18 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
5 Sept 29.0 °C 17 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
6 Sept 30.0 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
7 Sept 30.0 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
8 Sept 29.9 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
9 Sept 30.2 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
10 Sept 29.4 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
11 Sept 30.1 °C 24 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
12 Sept 30.4 °C 19 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
13 Sept 30.5 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
14 Sept 30.8 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
15 Sept 31.4 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
16 Sept 32.1 °C 15 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
17 Sept 32.2 °C 17 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
18 Sept 31.2 °C 21 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
19 Sept 31.6 °C 29 % 41 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 51
20 Sept 29.7 °C 28 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
21 Sept 27.8 °C 34 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
22 Sept 31.0 °C 26 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
23 Sept 32.0 °C 22 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
24 Sept 31.7 °C 20 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
25 Sept 31.7 °C 21 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
26 Sept 31.8 °C 21 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
27 Sept 31.8 °C 22 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
28 Sept 33.1 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
29 Sept 34.3 °C 17 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
30 Sept after 33.5 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
1 Oct after 28.3 °C 40 % 49 km/h 0.6 mm Extreme 52
2 Oct after 29.9 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
3 Oct after 31.1 °C 15 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
4 Oct after 28.9 °C 16 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
5 Oct after 29.7 °C 23 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
6 Oct after 30.9 °C 22 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
7 Oct after 30.9 °C 22 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
8 Oct after 31.5 °C 23 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
9 Oct after 31.2 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 12 Aug 2025
After · 6 Oct 2025

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 18 September 2025 the air beside the fire reached 84 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 42: 2.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak84 µg/m³
Days over the guideline23 days
PM1085 µg/m³
Optical depth1.28
23 Aug30 Aug6 Sept13 Sept20 Sept
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 · 4,721Every 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 19 August 2025 to 29 September 2025 (42 days). The perimeter dates it from 25 August 2025 to 22 September 2025.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 135,612 hectares (1,356.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Shiwang'Andu (136,301 ha, 15 %); Kasama (54 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.3 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 71, class Very 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 · 3 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Name: Shiwang'Andu → Kasama.
  2. Last day with fire: 22 September 2025 → 29 September 2025.
  3. Start date: 25 August 2025 → 19 August 2025.

RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

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
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy.

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 25 August 2025 to 22 September 2025. 4,721 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.

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.