Burned area
satellite only4,528ha
Perimeter published by GWIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 29 Jun 2024 – 13 Jul 2024
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
ZM · Zambia · –
Lufwanyama fire, 29 June 2024 Lufwanyama
Out · last detection 13 Jul 2024, 11:44 UTC
The fire started on 29 June 2024 in Lufwanyama, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,528 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 8th largest in Copperbelt since 2016 (of 35 with a page). Number 85 in Zambia in 2024, of 160.
Use this data
Compare with…
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-11-05matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only15days
29 Jun 2024 to 13 Jul 2024: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 13 Jul 2024, 11:44 UTC
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only29 Jun 2024
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 29 Jun 2024
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only139
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 41 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP + NOAA-20)
- Date
- 29 Jun 2024 – 13 Jul 2024
+− cross-check
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
The worst day
satellite only456MW
Total radiative power on 7 July 2024; hotspots that day: 40.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 7 Jul 2024
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model30.8FWI · high
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 60.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 29 Jun 2024, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model28.7°C · 20% RH
High of 28.7 °C and minimum humidity of 20% on 13 July 2024; gusts of 36 km/h on 6 July 2024.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 29 Jun 2024 – 13 Jul 2024
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
Living inside
model≈ 600people
Estimated residents inside the perimeter and 5.0 ha of built-up area (100 m grid, epoch 2025).
- Source
- GHSL R2023A · JRC
- Date
- calculated on 24 October 2026
+− cross-check
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.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
logStart date: 5 July 2024 → 29 June 2024.
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
logStart date: 29 June 2024 → 5 July 2024.
-
logStart date: 5 July 2024 → 29 June 2024.
-
· reconstructed GHSLPopulation and built-up area computed
Area logged each night
Move the slider to see which area the page published each day.
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/lufwanyama-2024-07-3?v=2026-11-05A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire lufwanyama-2024-07-3.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024-06-29 | 0 | 0 | 24.9 | 10.1 | 32 | 13.6 | 30.6 | 0 | 30.8 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-06-30 | 5 | 29 | 25.1 | 10.2 | 33 | 13.3 | 29.9 | 0 | 28.9 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-07-01 | 3 | 7 | 26.8 | 11.7 | 27 | 13.6 | 29.9 | 0 | 30.6 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-07-02 | 1 | 4 | 26.2 | 11.2 | 29 | 12.6 | 31 | 0 | 33.7 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-07-03 | 0 | 0 | 26.4 | 11.4 | 31 | 12 | 26.6 | 0 | 32 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-07-04 | 4 | 62 | 27.1 | 11.1 | 26 | 11.7 | 27 | 0 | 33.6 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-07-05 | 8 | 139 | 27.9 | 9.9 | 17 | 12.5 | 29.2 | 0 | 43.4 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2024-07-06 | 20 | 254 | 27.9 | 9.7 | 17 | 13.4 | 35.6 | 0 | 49.7 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2024-07-07 | 40 | 456 | 27.4 | 9.3 | 18 | 11.7 | 28.1 | 0 | 44.2 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2024-07-08 | 4 | 25 | 28.4 | 8.4 | 18 | 8.9 | 19.1 | 0 | 34 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-07-09 | 10 | 132 | 28.4 | 9.4 | 13 | 13.2 | 34.6 | 0 | 56.6 | extremo | 1 |
| 2024-07-10 | 13 | 109 | 27.1 | 9.8 | 17 | 14.5 | 32.4 | 0 | 55 | extremo | 1 |
| 2024-07-11 | 20 | 194 | 26.8 | 8.7 | 20 | 12.1 | 30.2 | 0 | 48.2 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2024-07-12 | 5 | 33 | 27.5 | 8.7 | 18 | 11 | 28.4 | 0 | 45.6 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2024-07-13 | 6 | 39 | 28.7 | 8.9 | 20 | 12.5 | 27.4 | 0 | 45 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2024-07-14 | 0 | 0 | 28.4 | 10.6 | 25 | 12.9 | 30.2 | 0 | 42.3 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2024-07-15 | 0 | 0 | 28.1 | 10.8 | 20 | 12.7 | 30.2 | 0 | 41.2 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2024-07-16 | 0 | 0 | 28.3 | 9.9 | 16 | 13.1 | 27.4 | 0 | 43.7 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2024-07-17 | 0 | 0 | 28.1 | 10.1 | 21 | 13 | 29.2 | 0 | 45.2 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2024-07-18 | 0 | 0 | 27.9 | 9.3 | 21 | 12.5 | 34.2 | 0 | 48.7 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2024-07-19 | 0 | 0 | 27.2 | 10.3 | 23 | 12.3 | 32 | 0 | 44.4 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2024-07-20 | 0 | 0 | 28.6 | 9.9 | 22 | 13 | 30.6 | 0 | 43.6 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2024-07-21 | 0 | 0 | 29.9 | 10.6 | 21 | 12.7 | 28.1 | 0 | 41.8 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2024-07-22 | 0 | 0 | 30 | 12.6 | 21 | 13 | 27.7 | 0 | 40.7 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2024-07-23 | 0 | 0 | 28.5 | 12.7 | 20 | 13.1 | 32 | 0 | 45.8 | muy_alto | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: GWIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0), GHSL (JRC). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 4,528ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 15days
- 29 Jun 2024 – 13 Jul 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 29 Jun
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 139
- in a single hotspot: 41 MW
- Danger at start
- 31
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 114MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
29 Jun13 Jul
13 Jul 2024
How it evolved, day by day
30 Jun
4 Jul
7 Jul
10 Jul
13 Jul
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
29°high
36km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
67% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,114 ha in 2016, 897 ha in 2017, 1,143 ha in 2018, 696 ha in 2019, 729 ha in 2020, 1,096 ha in 2022, 1,207 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,041 ha that had burned before.
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
-
Lufwanyama where it started4,555 ha reached on 30 Jun0.4 %
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 2025Built-up area5.0 ha
Residents≈ 600
Inside the perimeter there were about 5.0 hectares of built-up land and about 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 29 Jun | 24.9 °C | 32 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 30 Jun | 25.1 °C | 33 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 1 Jul | 26.8 °C | 27 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 2 Jul | 26.2 °C | 29 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 3 Jul | 26.4 °C | 31 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 4 Jul | 27.1 °C | 26 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 5 Jul | 27.9 °C | 17 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 6 Jul | 27.9 °C | 17 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 7 Jul | 27.4 °C | 18 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 8 Jul | 28.4 °C | 18 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 9 Jul | 28.4 °C | 13 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 10 Jul | 27.1 °C | 17 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 11 Jul | 26.8 °C | 20 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 12 Jul | 27.5 °C | 18 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 13 Jul | 28.7 °C | 20 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 14 Jul after | 28.4 °C | 25 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 15 Jul after | 28.1 °C | 20 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 16 Jul after | 28.3 °C | 16 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 17 Jul after | 28.1 °C | 21 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 18 Jul after | 27.9 °C | 21 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 19 Jul after | 27.2 °C | 23 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 20 Jul after | 28.6 °C | 22 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 21 Jul after | 29.9 °C | 21 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 22 Jul after | 30.0 °C | 21 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 23 Jul after | 28.5 °C | 20 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 30.8, a minimum humidity of 32% and more than two months without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2022: 11.
FWI at the start
30.8
Minimum humidity
32 %
Days without rain
60+
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Lufwanyama fire, 29 June 2024
4,528 ha
15 days
FWI 30.8
Min. humidity 32 %
Milengi fire, July 2024
4,928 ha
19 days
FWI 34.3
Min. humidity 32 %
193 km away, in 2024
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Kalulushi fire, July 2022
3,209 ha
23 days
FWI 35.4
Min. humidity 30 %
21 km away, in 2022
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Lufwanyama fire, July 2022
5,770 ha
19 days
FWI 36.6
Min. humidity 29 %
18 km away, in 2022
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Lufwanyama fire, July 2022
5,252 ha
19 days
FWI 39.2
Min. humidity 33 %
45 km away, in 2022
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Lufwanyama fire, July 2023
3,043 ha
23 days
FWI 36.7
Min. humidity 27 %
35 km away, in 2023
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
What happened to them
Fires in the area that started in similar weather: 11. With fewer than 15 we give no figures: they would be more noise than signal.
This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it
How it ended
—first rain
—no rain in ten days
36km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 13 Jul, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain.
Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)
How a twin is chosen
- Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2022.
- Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
- Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
- Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
- They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 22 Jun 2024
After · 20 Jul 2024
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
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 · CopernicusOn 8 July 2024 the air beside the fire reached 164 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 92: 6.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
PM2.5 peak164 µg/m³
Days over the guideline14 days
PM10236 µg/m³
Optical depth1.39
WHO 15
3 Jul6 Jul9 Jul12 Jul15 Jul
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 · 139Every 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
- 5,856 haLufwanyama24 July 2026 · 24 days · 7 km away
- 7,642 haLufwanyama2 August 2025 · 10 days · 10 km away
- 5,770 haLufwanyama27 July 2022 · 19 days · 18 km away
- 8,598 haLufwanyama13 July 2019 · 23 days · 24 km away
- 10,924 haLufwanyama6 August 2026 · 26 days · 32 km away
- 25,077 haLufwanyama13 July 2026 · 53 days · 34 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Lufwanyama fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 29 June 2024 to 13 July 2024 (15 days). The perimeter dates it from 5 July 2024 to 13 July 2024.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 4,528 hectares (45.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Lufwanyama (4,555 ha, 0.4 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 28.7 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 57, 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 · 3 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Start date: 5 July 2024 → 29 June 2024.
- Start date: 29 June 2024 → 5 July 2024.
- Start date: 5 July 2024 → 29 June 2024.
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.
Report an error
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 5 July 2024 to 13 July 2024. 139 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.
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.