Lunga fire, October 2026 Lunga, Chilubi
Satellites first detected fire on 14 October 2026 in Lunga, Zambia. It has been active for 10 days, with 344 heat detections and an area with fire of about 4,298 hectares rebuilt from them, spread across 2 municipalities.
The power measured by the satellite is low (22.4 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
GWIS (Copernicus) has not yet published the perimeter of this fire. It rebuilds it from hotspots, which can take several days, and it does not always arrive. For now the area is the one rebuilt from heat detections (about 14 hectares per pixel). If the perimeter arrives, this page picks it up on its own and keeps the same address.
Is it still active?
Satellites detected fire on 23 Oct 2026, 23:41 UTC. Everything suggests it is still burning. 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.
- Area with fire
- ≈ 4,298ha
- rebuilt from hotspots, no official perimeter yet
- Duration
- 10days
- 14 Oct 2026 – 23 Oct 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 14 Oct
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 344
- in a single hotspot: 22 MW
- Danger at start
- 38
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 2.4GW
- sum of detected power
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 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
What happened to each town
-
Lunga where it started4,284 ha reached on 14 Oct1.1 %
-
14 ha reached on 15 Oct0.0 %
Area with fire inside each municipality, rebuilt from heat detections (about 14 hectares per VIIRS pixel). An estimate until the official perimeter arrives. 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13 Oct | 31.7 °C | 30 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 14 Oct | 32.4 °C | 22 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 15 Oct | 31.8 °C | 22 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 16 Oct | 31.5 °C | 22 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 17 Oct | 31.6 °C | 22 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 18 Oct | 31.2 °C | 25 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 19 Oct | 32.3 °C | 28 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 20 Oct | 34.2 °C | 21 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 21 Oct | 34.8 °C | 19 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 22 Oct | 35.1 °C | 16 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
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.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 20 October 2026 the air beside the fire reached 38 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 34: 2.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 344Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Lunga fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite, it burned from 14 October 2026 to 23 October 2026 (10 days between the first and the last detection). There is no perimeter yet to date it.
- How much area did it burn?
- There is no perimeter yet. Heat detections rebuild about 4,298 hectares with fire (43.0 km²), a rough figure; GWIS will give its own when it publishes the perimeter, which can take several days.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Lunga (4,284 ha, 1.1 %); Chilubi (14 ha, 0.0 %).
- Is the Lunga fire still active?
- Yes: satellites detected fire on 23 Oct 2026, 23:41 UTC. Check the emergency service for the official status.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 34.8 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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
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
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.