How long did the Lupososhi fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 27 August 2017 and 2 September 2017: 7 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 19,800 hectares (198.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 3 municipalities: Lupososhi (16,363 ha, 4.0 %); Chipili (2,635 ha, 0.6 %); Kawambwa (912 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 29.1 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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 · 2017-08-27 → 2017-09-02

Lupososhi fire, 27 August 2017 Lupososhi, Chipili, Kawambwa

Out · last detection 3 Sept 2017, 12:29 UTC

The fire started on 27 August 2017 in Lupososhi, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 19,800 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 23th largest in Northern since 2016 (of 628 with a page). Number 18 in Zambia in 2017, of 230.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Kawambwa · 2016 Lupososhi · 2016 Lupososhi · 2021 Lupososhi · 2019

Burnt area: 19,800ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 7days; 27 Aug 2017 – 2 Sept 2017
Municipalities hit: 3; districts
Started on: 27 Aug; 2017
Heat detections: 606; in a single hotspot: 225 MW
Danger at start: 45; Very high · FWI index
Average daily power: 1.1GW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Aug2 Sept

Play back 3 Sept 2017

How it evolved, day by day

27 Aug 28 Aug 29 Aug 31 Aug 2 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

29°high

45km/h · peak gust

16%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

69% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 13,683 ha in 2016.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 13% of the area of London (198 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

Lupososhi where it started

16,363 ha reached on 27 Aug

4.0 %
Chipili

2,635 ha reached on 28 Aug

0.6 %
Kawambwa

912 ha reached on 29 Aug

0.1 %

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.

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	Danger (FWI)
27 Aug	28.3 °C	24 %	45 km/h	Very high 45
28 Aug	27.2 °C	21 %	45 km/h	Very high 45
29 Aug	25.5 °C	27 %	45 km/h	Very high 42
30 Aug	28.1 °C	22 %	33 km/h	High 37
31 Aug	29.1 °C	18 %	34 km/h	Very high 38
1 Sept	28.6 °C	16 %	35 km/h	Very high 40
2 Sept	27.9 °C	16 %	35 km/h	Very high 42
3 Sept after	27.7 °C	22 %	48 km/h	Very high 47
4 Sept after	27.2 °C	28 %	48 km/h	Very high 43
5 Sept after	28.0 °C	28 %	40 km/h	Very high 40
6 Sept after	28.9 °C	28 %	35 km/h	High 37
7 Sept after	29.0 °C	21 %	36 km/h	Very high 38
8 Sept after	28.5 °C	23 %	38 km/h	Very high 39
9 Sept after	28.9 °C	23 %	37 km/h	Very high 39
10 Sept after	28.8 °C	25 %	38 km/h	Very high 39
11 Sept after	29.4 °C	20 %	41 km/h	Very high 41
12 Sept after	29.5 °C	19 %	39 km/h	Very high 41

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 20 Aug 2017

After · 9 Sept 2017

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.

Detections table · 606Every 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 Lupososhi fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 27 August 2017 and 2 September 2017: 7 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 19,800 hectares (198.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 3 municipalities: Lupososhi (16,363 ha, 4.0 %); Chipili (2,635 ha, 0.6 %); Kawambwa (912 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 29.1 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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 ↗

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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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 from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 606 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.

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.

Where it burned