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Lavushimanda fire, June 2026 Lavushimanda, Kanchibiya

Out · last detection 18 Jun 2026, 11:11 UTC

The fire started on 7 June 2026 in Lavushimanda, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,565 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 96th largest in Muchinga since 2016 (of 513 with a page). Number 85 in Zambia in 2026, of 604.

Burnt area
9,565ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
7 Jun 2026 – 18 Jun 2026
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
7 Jun
2026
Heat detections
207
in a single hotspot: 42 MW
Danger at start
30
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

18 Jun 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Jun18 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

89101112131415161718

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

30°high
37km/h · peak gust
28%lowest humidity

It had gone 49 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

34% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 42 ha in 2016, 723 ha in 2017, 1,524 ha in 2019, 882 ha in 2020, 318 ha in 2022, 404 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,213 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Lavushimanda where it started
    9,592 ha reached on 5 Jun
    0.7 %
  2. Kanchibiya
    8 ha
    0.0 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre 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)

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
7 Jun 30.1 °C 34 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
8 Jun 28.2 °C 39 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
9 Jun 28.2 °C 32 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
10 Jun 27.9 °C 31 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
11 Jun 26.5 °C 30 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
12 Jun 26.1 °C 29 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
13 Jun 25.9 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
14 Jun 26.0 °C 31 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
15 Jun 26.3 °C 33 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
16 Jun 27.2 °C 34 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
17 Jun 26.9 °C 35 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
18 Jun 26.8 °C 36 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
19 Jun after 26.6 °C 37 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
20 Jun after 25.0 °C 36 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
21 Jun after 24.7 °C 36 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
22 Jun after 24.3 °C 39 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
23 Jun after 24.8 °C 32 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
24 Jun after 25.6 °C 33 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
25 Jun after 26.0 °C 31 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
26 Jun after 24.3 °C 33 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
27 Jun after 24.1 °C 34 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
28 Jun after 25.0 °C 28 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 31

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 31 May 2026
After · 25 Jun 2026

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 16 June 2026 the air beside the fire reached 16 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak16 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1018 µg/m³
Optical depth0.23
56789101112131415161718192021
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 · 207Every 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 Lavushimanda fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 7 June 2026 and 18 June 2026: 12 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 9,565 hectares (95.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Lavushimanda (9,592 ha, 0.7 %); Kanchibiya (8 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.1 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, class 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

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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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.