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Kawambwa fire, 14 August 2016 Kawambwa

Out · last detection 8 Sept 2016, 11:39 UTC

The fire started on 14 August 2016 in Kawambwa, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 25 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 14,581 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 97th largest in Luapula since 2016 (of 534 with a page). Number 25 in Zambia in 2016, of 246.

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Suggestions: Kawambwa · 2026Kawambwa · 2016Kawambwa · 2026Kawambwa · 2025

Burnt area
14,581ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
25days
14 Aug 2016 – 7 Sept 2016
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
14 Aug
2016
Heat detections
688
in a single hotspot: 114 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Average daily power
317MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Aug7 Sept
8 Sept 2016

How it evolved, day by day

14 Aug 2016 · 264 MW · 6 15 Aug 2016 · 45 MW · 4 16 Aug 2016 · 659 MW · 38 17 Aug 2016 · 358 MW · 24 18 Aug 2016 · 607 MW · 49 19 Aug 2016 · 562 MW · 27 20 Aug 2016 · 208 MW · 23 21 Aug 2016 · 661 MW · 40 23 Aug 2016 · 700 MW · 113 24 Aug 2016 · 643 MW · 61 25 Aug 2016 · 130 MW · 19 26 Aug 2016 · 22 MW · 4 27 Aug 2016 · 72 MW · 10 28 Aug 2016 · 156 MW · 11 29 Aug 2016 · 853 MW · 61 30 Aug 2016 · 348 MW · 26 31 Aug 2016 · 150 MW · 22 1 Sept 2016 · 203 MW · 38 2 Sept 2016 · 273 MW · 17 3 Sept 2016 · 167 MW · 27 4 Sept 2016 · 464 MW · 21 5 Sept 2016 · 236 MW · 31 6 Sept 2016 · 72 MW · 8 7 Sept 2016 · 64 MW · 6 8 Sept 2016 · 16 MW · 2
14 Aug 18 Aug 23 Aug 27 Aug 29 Aug 31 Aug 4 Sept 8 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

32°high
52km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 9.2% of the area of London (146 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. Kawambwa where it started
    14,683 ha reached on 14 Aug
    1.8 %

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 2015
Built-up area2.4 ha
Residents≈ 150

Inside the perimeter there were about 2.4 hectares of built-up land and about 150 residents (GHSL 2015, 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.

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 Aug 29.1 °C 28 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
15 Aug 29.4 °C 26 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
16 Aug 29.7 °C 22 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
17 Aug 27.3 °C 29 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
18 Aug 28.3 °C 26 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
19 Aug 29.7 °C 22 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
20 Aug 30.5 °C 22 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
21 Aug 32.2 °C 18 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
22 Aug 31.7 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
23 Aug 31.1 °C 17 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
24 Aug 28.4 °C 26 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
25 Aug 28.3 °C 24 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
26 Aug 27.7 °C 25 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
27 Aug 28.8 °C 24 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
28 Aug 28.6 °C 21 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
29 Aug 28.6 °C 18 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
30 Aug 28.7 °C 20 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
31 Aug 29.0 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
1 Sept 28.3 °C 22 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
2 Sept 28.5 °C 21 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
3 Sept 29.9 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
4 Sept 30.2 °C 19 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
5 Sept 31.0 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
6 Sept 31.4 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
7 Sept 31.4 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
8 Sept after 32.0 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
9 Sept after 31.6 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
10 Sept after 32.3 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
11 Sept after 32.1 °C 15 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
12 Sept after 31.3 °C 17 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
13 Sept after 32.2 °C 15 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
14 Sept after 32.5 °C 16 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
15 Sept after 32.2 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
16 Sept after 32.9 °C 18 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
17 Sept after 32.2 °C 22 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Aug 2016
After · 14 Sept 2016

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 688Every 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 Kawambwa fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 14 August 2016 to 7 September 2016 (25 days). The perimeter dates it from 15 August 2016 to 31 August 2016.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 14,581 hectares (145.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kawambwa (14,683 ha, 1.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.2 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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: 31 August 2016 → 7 September 2016.
  2. Start date: 15 August 2016 → 14 August 2016.

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; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 15 August 2016 to 31 August 2016. 688 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 2015, 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.