Lunte fire, 15 September 2025 Lunte, Kawambwa
The fire started on 15 September 2025 in Lunte, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 20,778 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 20th largest in Northern since 2016 (of 628 with a page). Number 20 in Zambia in 2025, of 271.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Lunte · 2020Lunte · 2017Lunte · 2018Lunte · 2020
- Burnt area
- 20,778ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 18days
- 15 Sept 2025 – 2 Oct 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 15 Sept
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 397
- in a single hotspot: 169 MW
- Danger at start
- 37
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 575MW
- 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 more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
98% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 7,126 ha in 2016, 7,731 ha in 2017, 11,313 ha in 2018, 6,310 ha in 2019, 13,718 ha in 2020, 1,023 ha in 2021, 7,524 ha in 2022, 6,865 ha in 2023, 6,875 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 20,352 ha that had burned before.
- 10,366 ha Lunte fire, September 2020 16,002 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,330 ha Lunte fire, September 2017 8,550 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,609 ha Lunte fire, September 2018 4,256 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,352 ha Lunte fire, September 2020 4,307 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,897 ha Lunte fire, September 2024 4,596 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,865 ha Lunte fire, September 2023 7,216 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,708 ha Lunte fire, September 2016 3,732 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,547 ha Lunte fire, September 2018 4,333 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
-
Lunte where it started20,796 ha reached on 15 Sept2.7 %
-
124 ha reached on 15 Sept0.0 %
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 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 9.2 hectares of built-up land and about 1,100 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)
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 Sept | 30.0 °C | 24 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 16 Sept | 30.9 °C | 20 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 17 Sept | 31.1 °C | 21 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 18 Sept | 30.5 °C | 20 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 19 Sept | 29.8 °C | 34 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 20 Sept | 29.8 °C | 28 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 21 Sept | 28.1 °C | 31 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 22 Sept | 29.9 °C | 26 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 23 Sept | 31.0 °C | 25 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 24 Sept | 31.2 °C | 21 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 25 Sept | 30.8 °C | 25 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 26 Sept | 30.1 °C | 25 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 27 Sept | 31.3 °C | 23 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 28 Sept | 31.4 °C | 24 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 29 Sept | 33.1 °C | 22 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 30 Sept | 31.9 °C | 24 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 1 Oct | 29.0 °C | 38 % | 49 km/h | 1.3 mm | High 27 |
| 2 Oct | 27.9 °C | 40 % | 45 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 31 |
| 3 Oct after | 30.6 °C | 19 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 4 Oct after | 28.7 °C | 17 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 5 Oct after | 29.3 °C | 23 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 6 Oct after | 30.4 °C | 23 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 7 Oct after | 30.2 °C | 24 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 8 Oct after | 29.7 °C | 29 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 9 Oct after | 30.4 °C | 26 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 10 Oct after | 30.1 °C | 29 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 11 Oct after | 31.1 °C | 26 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 12 Oct after | 31.7 °C | 25 % | 37 km/h | 0.2 mm | Very high 41 |
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 18 September 2025 the air beside the fire reached 72 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 41: 2.8 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 · 397Every 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 Lunte fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 15 September 2025 to 2 October 2025 (18 days). The perimeter dates it from 15 September 2025 to 25 September 2025.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 20,778 hectares (207.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Lunte (20,796 ha, 2.7 %); Kawambwa (124 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 33.1 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 52 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
History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 25 September 2025 → 2 October 2025.
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 15 September 2025 to 25 September 2025. 397 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.