Skip to content
worldfires
en
ZM · Zambia · →

Kazungula fire, 29 August 2025 Kazungula

Out · last detection 24 Sept 2025, 12:49 UTC

The fire started on 29 August 2025 in Kazungula, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 27 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,743 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 16th largest in Southern since 2016 (of 59 with a page). Number 88 in Zambia in 2025, of 271.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Kazungula · 2019Kazungula · 2026Kazungula · 2016Kazungula · 2022

Burnt area
5,743ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
27days
29 Aug 2025 – 24 Sept 2025
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
29 Aug
2025
Heat detections
147
in a single hotspot: 51 MW
Danger at start
52
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
59MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Aug24 Sept
24 Sept 2025

How it evolved, day by day

29 Aug 2025 · 6 MW · 1 30 Aug 2025 · 6 MW · 1 1 Sept 2025 · 115 MW · 12 2 Sept 2025 · 30 MW · 6 3 Sept 2025 · 85 MW · 5 4 Sept 2025 · 27 MW · 3 5 Sept 2025 · 10 MW · 2 6 Sept 2025 · 8 MW · 1 7 Sept 2025 · 84 MW · 8 9 Sept 2025 · 2 MW · 3 10 Sept 2025 · 7 MW · 1 11 Sept 2025 · 24 MW · 4 12 Sept 2025 · 29 MW · 4 13 Sept 2025 · 67 MW · 8 14 Sept 2025 · 5 MW · 1 15 Sept 2025 · 14 MW · 2 16 Sept 2025 · 174 MW · 16 17 Sept 2025 · 361 MW · 19 18 Sept 2025 · 196 MW · 21 19 Sept 2025 · 23 MW · 11 20 Sept 2025 · 7 MW · 3 21 Sept 2025 · 54 MW · 5 22 Sept 2025 · 118 MW · 7 23 Sept 2025 · 16 MW · 2 24 Sept 2025 · 6 MW · 1
29 Aug 3 Sept 7 Sept 12 Sept 16 Sept 17 Sept 20 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

37°high
50km/h · peak gust
8%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

90% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 801 ha in 2016, 247 ha in 2017, 2,053 ha in 2018, 2,482 ha in 2019, 3,454 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,183 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 3.6% of the area of London (57 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. Kazungula where it started
    5,765 ha reached on 29 Aug
    0.3 %

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 area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (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)
29 Aug 32.2 °C 14 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
30 Aug 33.3 °C 11 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
31 Aug 32.5 °C 13 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
1 Sept 32.9 °C 9 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
2 Sept 32.0 °C 9 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
3 Sept 30.5 °C 12 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
4 Sept 32.4 °C 11 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
5 Sept 32.5 °C 12 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
6 Sept 34.0 °C 10 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
7 Sept 34.0 °C 12 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
8 Sept 34.2 °C 12 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
9 Sept 33.8 °C 12 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
10 Sept 33.0 °C 15 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
11 Sept 33.2 °C 15 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
12 Sept 33.8 °C 13 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
13 Sept 33.1 °C 13 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
14 Sept 34.2 °C 12 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
15 Sept 35.1 °C 11 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
16 Sept 36.3 °C 11 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
17 Sept 37.0 °C 11 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
18 Sept 36.2 °C 12 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
19 Sept 35.2 °C 13 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
20 Sept 33.9 °C 20 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
21 Sept 33.1 °C 18 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
22 Sept 34.2 °C 18 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
23 Sept 35.9 °C 13 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
24 Sept 37.0 °C 8 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
25 Sept after 35.8 °C 15 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
26 Sept after 35.0 °C 14 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 70
27 Sept after 34.6 °C 18 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
28 Sept after 36.7 °C 17 % 50 km/h 0.2 mm Extreme 63
29 Sept after 30.6 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.4 mm Very high 45
30 Sept after 34.7 °C 19 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
1 Oct after 31.7 °C 30 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
2 Oct after 32.6 °C 21 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
3 Oct after 34.7 °C 11 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
4 Oct after 32.7 °C 14 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Aug 2025
After · 1 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 4 September 2025 the air beside the fire reached 32 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 22: 1.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak32 µg/m³
Days over the guideline11 days
PM1032 µg/m³
Optical depth0.57
282930311234567891011121314151617181920212223242526
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 · 147Every 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 Kazungula fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 29 August 2025 to 24 September 2025 (27 days). The perimeter dates it from 30 August 2025 to 23 September 2025.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,743 hectares (57.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kazungula (5,765 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.0 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 68, 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.
  1. Last day with fire: 23 September 2025 → 24 September 2025.
  2. Start date: 30 August 2025 → 29 August 2025.

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.

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 30 August 2025 to 23 September 2025. 147 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.