How long did the Luano fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 16 August 2026 to 3 September 2026 (19 days). The perimeter dates it from 16 August 2026 to 27 August 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 7,538 hectares (75.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Luano (6,492 ha, 0.7 %); Mkushi (1,088 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 30.0 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, 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.

ZM · Zambia · 2026-08-16 → 2026-09-03

Luano fire, 16 August 2026 Luano, Mkushi

Out · last detection 3 Sept 2026, 12:08 UTC

The fire started on 16 August 2026 in Luano, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,538 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 84th largest in Central since 2016 (of 401 with a page). Number 122 in Zambia in 2026, of 610.

Burnt area: 7,538ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 19days; 16 Aug 2026 – 3 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit: 2; districts
Started on: 16 Aug; 2026
Heat detections: 190; in a single hotspot: 39 MW
Danger at start: 31; High · FWI index
Energy released: 1.5GW; sum of detected power

Play back 3 Sept 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Aug3 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

1617181920212223242526272829303113

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

49km/h · peak gust

25%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

36% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 632 ha in 2016, 1,201 ha in 2018, 240 ha in 2022, 1,001 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,711 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Luano where it started

6,492 ha reached on 16 Aug

0.7 %
Mkushi

1,088 ha reached on 17 Aug

0.1 %

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)
16 Aug	22.8 °C	30 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
17 Aug	24.2 °C	26 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
18 Aug	25.4 °C	27 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
19 Aug	25.2 °C	30 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
20 Aug	25.1 °C	37 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
21 Aug	26.3 °C	32 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
22 Aug	27.7 °C	32 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
23 Aug	28.0 °C	32 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
24 Aug	27.3 °C	34 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
25 Aug	27.0 °C	35 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
26 Aug	28.2 °C	34 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
27 Aug	25.8 °C	37 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
28 Aug	24.2 °C	39 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
29 Aug	25.2 °C	41 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
30 Aug	28.4 °C	31 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
31 Aug	29.6 °C	25 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
1 Sept	29.2 °C	28 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
2 Sept	28.3 °C	29 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
3 Sept	30.0 °C	29 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
4 Sept after	30.7 °C	30 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
5 Sept after	27.9 °C	37 %	30 km/h	0.2 mm	High 32
6 Sept after	26.3 °C	45 %	44 km/h	0.1 mm	High 35
7 Sept after	27.7 °C	39 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
8 Sept after	26.5 °C	36 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
9 Sept after	24.6 °C	37 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
10 Sept after	26.2 °C	37 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
11 Sept after	28.4 °C	32 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
12 Sept after	30.1 °C	30 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
13 Sept after	30.4 °C	29 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 9 Aug 2026

After · 10 Sept 2026

Before After

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 5 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 57 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 44: 2.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak57 µg/m³

Days over the guideline18 days

PM1061 µg/m³

Optical depth1.63

WHO 15

141516171819202122232425262728293031123456

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 · 190Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Zambia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Luano fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 16 August 2026 to 3 September 2026 (19 days). The perimeter dates it from 16 August 2026 to 27 August 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 7,538 hectares (75.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Luano (6,492 ha, 0.7 %); Mkushi (1,088 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 30.0 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

Where it burned