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Kawambwa fire, 16 August 2016 Kawambwa, Mporokoso

Out · last detection 14 Sept 2016, 11:26 UTC

The fire started on 16 August 2016 in Kawambwa, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 29 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 34,069 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 34th largest in Luapula since 2016 (of 534 with a page). Number 7 in Zambia in 2016, of 246.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Kawambwa · 2025Kawambwa · 2019Kawambwa · 2026Kawambwa · 2016

Burnt area
34,069ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
29days
16 Aug 2016 – 13 Sept 2016
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
16 Aug
2016
Heat detections
1,321
in a single hotspot: 135 MW
Danger at start
38
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
613MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Aug13 Sept
14 Sept 2016

How it evolved, day by day

16 Aug 2016 · 83 MW · 11 17 Aug 2016 · 14 MW · 2 18 Aug 2016 · 389 MW · 26 19 Aug 2016 · 85 MW · 4 20 Aug 2016 · 156 MW · 24 21 Aug 2016 · 196 MW · 13 22 Aug 2016 · 301 MW · 18 23 Aug 2016 · 2,744 MW · 120 24 Aug 2016 · 461 MW · 29 25 Aug 2016 · 423 MW · 29 26 Aug 2016 · 633 MW · 47 27 Aug 2016 · 938 MW · 91 28 Aug 2016 · 1,104 MW · 130 29 Aug 2016 · 3,931 MW · 289 30 Aug 2016 · 3,296 MW · 180 31 Aug 2016 · 572 MW · 57 1 Sept 2016 · 270 MW · 45 2 Sept 2016 · 564 MW · 39 3 Sept 2016 · 1,070 MW · 70 4 Sept 2016 · 409 MW · 16 5 Sept 2016 · 257 MW · 21 6 Sept 2016 · 83 MW · 9 7 Sept 2016 · 36 MW · 8 8 Sept 2016 · 125 MW · 12 9 Sept 2016 · 80 MW · 9 10 Sept 2016 · 24 MW · 3 11 Sept 2016 · 27 MW · 3 12 Sept 2016 · 30 MW · 6 13 Sept 2016 · 81 MW · 8 14 Sept 2016 · 10 MW · 2
16 Aug 21 Aug 26 Aug 29 Aug 31 Aug 5 Sept 10 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
50km/h · peak gust
16%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 22% of the area of London (341 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
    31,874 ha reached on 16 Aug
    4.0 %
  2. Mporokoso
    2,412 ha reached on 18 Aug
    0.6 %

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 area30 ha
Residents≈ 2,800

Inside the perimeter there were about 30 hectares of built-up land and about 2,800 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)
16 Aug 30.1 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
17 Aug 27.3 °C 30 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
18 Aug 28.7 °C 27 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
19 Aug 29.8 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
20 Aug 30.9 °C 23 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
21 Aug 32.5 °C 20 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
22 Aug 32.0 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
23 Aug 31.7 °C 19 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
24 Aug 29.0 °C 27 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
25 Aug 28.7 °C 25 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
26 Aug 28.2 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
27 Aug 29.2 °C 25 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
28 Aug 29.0 °C 21 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
29 Aug 29.0 °C 20 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
30 Aug 29.0 °C 21 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
31 Aug 29.4 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
1 Sept 28.9 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
2 Sept 28.9 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
3 Sept 30.1 °C 19 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
4 Sept 30.5 °C 22 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
5 Sept 31.1 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
6 Sept 31.4 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
7 Sept 31.5 °C 22 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
8 Sept 32.3 °C 23 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
9 Sept 32.1 °C 21 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
10 Sept 32.6 °C 16 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
11 Sept 32.4 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
12 Sept 31.5 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
13 Sept 32.4 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
14 Sept after 33.0 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
15 Sept after 32.2 °C 19 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
16 Sept after 32.7 °C 21 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
17 Sept after 32.1 °C 27 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
18 Sept after 32.5 °C 29 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
19 Sept after 32.9 °C 16 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
20 Sept after 31.1 °C 17 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
21 Sept after 31.4 °C 18 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
22 Sept after 32.1 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
23 Sept after 33.4 °C 19 % 30 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.

Before · 9 Aug 2016
After · 20 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 · 1,321Every 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 16 August 2016 to 13 September 2016 (29 days). The perimeter dates it from 22 August 2016 to 6 September 2016.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 34,069 hectares (340.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Kawambwa (31,874 ha, 4.0 %); Mporokoso (2,412 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.6 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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: 6 September 2016 → 13 September 2016.
  2. Start date: 22 August 2016 → 16 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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 22 August 2016 to 6 September 2016. 1,321 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.