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Lukulu fire, 12 August 2023 Lukulu

Out · last detection 9 Sept 2023, 23:43 UTC

The fire started on 12 August 2023 in Lukulu, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 29 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,632 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 90th largest in Western since 2016 (of 162 with a page). Number 114 in Zambia in 2023, of 165.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Lukulu · 2021Lukulu · 2025Lukulu · 2019Lukulu · 2026

Burnt area
3,632ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
29days
12 Aug 2023 – 9 Sept 2023
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
12 Aug
2023
Heat detections
254
in a single hotspot: 134 MW
Danger at start
43
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
144MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Aug9 Sept
9 Sept 2023

How it evolved, day by day

12 Aug 2023 · 4 MW · 1 14 Aug 2023 · 18 MW · 2 15 Aug 2023 · 293 MW · 6 16 Aug 2023 · 62 MW · 4 17 Aug 2023 · 35 MW · 3 18 Aug 2023 · 27 MW · 4 19 Aug 2023 · 87 MW · 3 20 Aug 2023 · 145 MW · 10 21 Aug 2023 · 135 MW · 3 22 Aug 2023 · 542 MW · 17 23 Aug 2023 · 315 MW · 19 24 Aug 2023 · 397 MW · 42 25 Aug 2023 · 139 MW · 7 26 Aug 2023 · 69 MW · 6 27 Aug 2023 · 27 MW · 9 28 Aug 2023 · 20 MW · 6 30 Aug 2023 · 204 MW · 12 31 Aug 2023 · 149 MW · 19 1 Sept 2023 · 265 MW · 16 2 Sept 2023 · 37 MW · 7 3 Sept 2023 · 1 MW · 1 5 Sept 2023 · 20 MW · 2 6 Sept 2023 · 2 MW · 1 7 Sept 2023 · 537 MW · 18 8 Sept 2023 · 138 MW · 17 9 Sept 2023 · 83 MW · 19
12 Aug 17 Aug 21 Aug 22 Aug 25 Aug 30 Aug 3 Sept 8 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

35°high
66km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

79% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5 ha in 2016, 2,094 ha in 2017, 802 ha in 2018, 1,586 ha in 2019, 2,274 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,872 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 2.3% of the area of London (36 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. Lukulu where it started
    3,647 ha reached on 12 Aug
    0.4 %

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 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)
19 Aug 31.3 °C 18 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
20 Aug 32.6 °C 16 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
21 Aug 34.3 °C 18 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
22 Aug 35.0 °C 14 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
23 Aug 34.3 °C 11 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
24 Aug 35.1 °C 14 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
25 Aug 34.3 °C 13 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
26 Aug 35.3 °C 11 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
27 Aug 35.1 °C 10 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
28 Aug 28.7 °C 29 % 66 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
29 Aug 27.8 °C 26 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
30 Aug 27.5 °C 19 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
31 Aug 29.7 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
1 Sept 31.9 °C 15 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
2 Sept 32.5 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
3 Sept 33.5 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
4 Sept 33.4 °C 14 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
5 Sept 33.0 °C 19 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
6 Sept 33.4 °C 22 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
7 Sept 34.7 °C 13 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
8 Sept 34.2 °C 13 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
9 Sept 33.0 °C 14 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
10 Sept after 33.0 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
11 Sept after 34.2 °C 18 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
12 Sept after 34.8 °C 12 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Aug 2023
After · 16 Sept 2023

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 2023 the air beside the fire reached 67 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 33: 2.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak67 µg/m³
Days over the guideline16 days
PM1096 µg/m³
Optical depth1.14
17181920212223242526272829303112345
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 · 254Every 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 Lukulu fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 12 August 2023 to 9 September 2023 (29 days). The perimeter dates it from 19 August 2023 to 2 September 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,632 hectares (36.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Lukulu (3,647 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.3 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 66 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 62, 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: 2 September 2023 → 9 September 2023.
  2. Start date: 19 August 2023 → 12 August 2023.

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.

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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 19 August 2023 to 2 September 2023. 254 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.