Luangwa fire, October 2021 Luangwa, Rufunsa
The fire started on 20 October 2021 in Luangwa, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 24 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 15,689 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 6th largest in Lusaka since 2016 (of 79 with a page). Number 16 in Zambia in 2021, of 213.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 15,689ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 24days
- 20 Oct 2021 – 12 Nov 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 20 Oct
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 584
- in a single hotspot: 0 MW
- Danger at start
- 32
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 143MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.8 mm on 21 Nov.
This area had burned before
91% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,013 ha in 2016, 2,378 ha in 2017, 9,791 ha in 2018, 5,531 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 14,354 ha that had burned before.
- 8,838 ha Rufunsa fire, September 2018 23,797 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,008 ha Rufunsa fire, September 2019 11,002 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,378 ha Rufunsa fire, October 2017 12,878 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 678 ha Kafue fire, September 2018 32,071 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 240 ha Rufunsa fire, October 2019 8,833 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 47 ha Rufunsa fire, September 2016 3,354 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 25 ha Rufunsa fire, September 2016 15,943 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Luangwa where it started8,091 ha2.1 %
-
7,712 ha0.8 %
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 2020Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20 Oct | 25.9 °C | 51 % | 52 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 32 |
| 21 Oct | 26.8 °C | 50 % | 45 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 30 |
| 22 Oct | 33.6 °C | 35 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 23 Oct | 36.1 °C | 25 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 24 Oct | 36.6 °C | 23 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 25 Oct | 33.9 °C | 32 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 26 Oct | 32.5 °C | 36 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 27 Oct | 32.2 °C | 38 % | 55 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 46 |
| 28 Oct | 29.4 °C | 41 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 29 Oct | 30.3 °C | 36 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 30 Oct | 34.6 °C | 26 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 31 Oct | 35.1 °C | 25 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 1 Nov | 36.3 °C | 28 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 2 Nov | 35.2 °C | 32 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 3 Nov | 36.3 °C | 23 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 4 Nov | 35.1 °C | 32 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 5 Nov | 34.8 °C | 32 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 6 Nov | 36.4 °C | 22 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 7 Nov | 36.9 °C | 19 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 8 Nov | 37.5 °C | 21 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 9 Nov | 38.4 °C | 21 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 10 Nov | 38.1 °C | 21 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 11 Nov | 33.9 °C | 35 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 12 Nov | 34.5 °C | 35 % | 45 km/h | 2.2 mm | High 25 |
| 13 Nov after | 32.6 °C | 34 % | 40 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 30 |
| 14 Nov after | 31.8 °C | 37 % | 45 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 32 |
| 15 Nov after | 33.8 °C | 36 % | 49 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 34 |
| 16 Nov after | 33.6 °C | 33 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 17 Nov after | 36.2 °C | 23 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 18 Nov after | 37.6 °C | 21 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 19 Nov after | 36.5 °C | 22 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 20 Nov after | 31.7 °C | 38 % | 44 km/h | 0.6 mm | High 36 |
| 21 Nov after | 30.4 °C | 46 % | 45 km/h | 2.8 mm | Moderate 13 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · 0Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 11,002 haRufunsaSeptember 2019 · 20 days · 5 km away
- 23,797 haRufunsaSeptember 2018 · 28 days · 7 km away
- 12,878 haRufunsa11 October 2017 · 16 days · 11 km away
- 15,943 haRufunsa1 September 2016 · 32 days · 13 km away
- 32,071 haKafueSeptember 2018 · 19 days · 16 km away
- 29,300 haRufunsa 13 October 2026 · 13 days · 30 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Luangwa fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 20 October 2021 and 12 November 2021: 24 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 15,689 hectares (156.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Luangwa (8,091 ha, 2.1 %); Rufunsa (7,712 ha, 0.8 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 38.4 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, 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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. No 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 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.