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ZM · Zambia · –

Kawambwa fire, 16 August 2025 Kawambwa, Luwingu, Lunte

Out · last detection 18 Sept 2025, 11:23 UTC

The fire started on 16 August 2025 in Kawambwa, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 34 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 68,343 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

Number 10 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
68,343ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
34days
16 Aug 2025 – 18 Sept 2025
Municipalities hit
3
districts
Started on
16 Aug
2025
Heat detections
3,142
in a single hotspot: 142 MW
Danger at start
29
High · FWI index
Average daily power
1.4GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Aug18 Sept
18 Sept 2025

How it evolved, day by day

16 Aug 2025 · 115 MW · 31 17 Aug 2025 · 261 MW · 38 18 Aug 2025 · 935 MW · 73 19 Aug 2025 · 2,821 MW · 181 20 Aug 2025 · 1,807 MW · 93 21 Aug 2025 · 2,950 MW · 181 22 Aug 2025 · 1,692 MW · 124 23 Aug 2025 · 944 MW · 100 24 Aug 2025 · 505 MW · 40 25 Aug 2025 · 452 MW · 56 26 Aug 2025 · 669 MW · 60 27 Aug 2025 · 2,363 MW · 183 28 Aug 2025 · 2,292 MW · 118 29 Aug 2025 · 6,376 MW · 389 30 Aug 2025 · 7,180 MW · 423 31 Aug 2025 · 1,220 MW · 123 1 Sept 2025 · 3,055 MW · 207 2 Sept 2025 · 1,545 MW · 105 3 Sept 2025 · 932 MW · 70 4 Sept 2025 · 1,233 MW · 100 5 Sept 2025 · 2,112 MW · 119 6 Sept 2025 · 1,673 MW · 75 7 Sept 2025 · 532 MW · 49 8 Sept 2025 · 326 MW · 29 9 Sept 2025 · 226 MW · 22 10 Sept 2025 · 37 MW · 4 11 Sept 2025 · 229 MW · 13 12 Sept 2025 · 203 MW · 22 13 Sept 2025 · 558 MW · 22 14 Sept 2025 · 27 MW · 4 15 Sept 2025 · 97 MW · 10 16 Sept 2025 · 1,395 MW · 47 17 Sept 2025 · 152 MW · 14 18 Sept 2025 · 229 MW · 17
16 Aug 23 Aug 30 Aug 6 Sept 13 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

31°high
50km/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

96% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 23,359 ha in 2016, 33,337 ha in 2017, 23,373 ha in 2018, 33,981 ha in 2019, 38,354 ha in 2020, 32,018 ha in 2021, 24,577 ha in 2022, 26,238 ha in 2023, 33,171 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 65,929 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 43% of the area of London (683 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
    67,305 ha reached on 16 Aug
    8.4 %
  2. 1,273 ha reached on 4 Sept
    0.3 %
  3. 233 ha reached on 26 Aug
    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 area34 ha
Residents≈ 3,600

Inside the perimeter there were about 34 hectares of built-up land and about 3,600 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)

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

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
16 Aug 27.0 °C 29 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
17 Aug 26.8 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
18 Aug 25.5 °C 24 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
19 Aug 25.4 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
20 Aug 25.6 °C 25 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
21 Aug 26.1 °C 22 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
22 Aug 27.0 °C 24 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
23 Aug 26.5 °C 23 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
24 Aug 27.2 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
25 Aug 29.0 °C 29 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
26 Aug 30.0 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
27 Aug 27.1 °C 23 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
28 Aug 28.8 °C 22 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
29 Aug 28.9 °C 18 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
30 Aug 27.7 °C 19 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
31 Aug 27.1 °C 22 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
1 Sept 27.7 °C 19 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
2 Sept 27.4 °C 23 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
3 Sept 27.3 °C 27 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
4 Sept 27.8 °C 20 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
5 Sept 28.3 °C 19 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
6 Sept 29.3 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
7 Sept 29.7 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
8 Sept 29.1 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
9 Sept 28.7 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
10 Sept 29.3 °C 29 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
11 Sept 27.5 °C 34 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
12 Sept 28.6 °C 26 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
13 Sept 30.4 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
14 Sept 29.7 °C 24 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
15 Sept 30.0 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
16 Sept 31.0 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
17 Sept 31.4 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
18 Sept 30.8 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
19 Sept after 29.8 °C 32 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
20 Sept after 30.0 °C 26 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
21 Sept after 28.1 °C 30 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
22 Sept after 29.7 °C 26 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
23 Sept after 31.2 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
24 Sept after 31.4 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
25 Sept after 30.6 °C 25 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
26 Sept after 29.8 °C 25 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
27 Sept after 31.5 °C 22 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
28 Sept after 31.1 °C 24 % 34 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 · 9 Aug 2025
After · 25 Sept 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 23 August 2025 the air beside the fire reached 136 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 62: 4.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak136 µg/m³
Days over the guideline30 days
PM10140 µg/m³
Optical depth1.09
14 Aug21 Aug28 Aug4 Sept11 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 · 3,142Every 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 2025 to 18 September 2025 (34 days). The perimeter dates it from 16 August 2025 to 11 September 2025.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 68,343 hectares (683.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Kawambwa (67,305 ha, 8.4 %); Luwingu (1,273 ha, 0.3 %); Lunte (233 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.4 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 50 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 · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 11 September 2025 → 18 September 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.

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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 August 2025 to 11 September 2025. 3,142 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.