Lupososhi fire, 24 August 2025 Lupososhi
The fire started on 24 August 2025 in Lupososhi, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,274 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 91th largest in Northern since 2016 (of 628 with a page). Number 49 in Zambia in 2025, of 271.
- Burnt area
- 9,274ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 10days
- 24 Aug 2025 – 2 Sept 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 24 Aug
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 622
- in a single hotspot: 143 MW
- Danger at start
- 35
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 520MW
- 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
99% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 6,949 ha in 2016, 1,705 ha in 2017, 1,759 ha in 2018, 6,506 ha in 2019, 4,313 ha in 2020, 5,035 ha in 2021, 3,777 ha in 2022, 3,030 ha in 2023, 2,858 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 9,176 ha that had burned before.
- 6,550 ha Kawambwa fire, August 2016 123,335 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 6,259 ha Lupososhi fire, August 2019 35,869 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,067 ha Lupososhi fire, September 2022 12,686 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,349 ha Lupososhi fire, August 2021 34,216 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,721 ha Chipili fire, August 2023 27,236 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,571 ha Lupososhi fire, September 2021 10,547 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,330 ha Lupososhi fire, August 2020 3,036 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,126 ha Lupososhi fire, August 2017 3,125 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Lupososhi where it started9,324 ha reached on 18 Aug2.2 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 24 Aug | 27.6 °C | 25 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 25 Aug | 29.5 °C | 29 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 26 Aug | 30.3 °C | 25 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 27 Aug | 27.6 °C | 23 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 28 Aug | 29.1 °C | 22 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 29 Aug | 29.2 °C | 19 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 30 Aug | 28.1 °C | 20 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 31 Aug | 27.5 °C | 23 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 1 Sept | 28.1 °C | 19 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 2 Sept | 27.6 °C | 23 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 3 Sept after | 27.5 °C | 26 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 4 Sept after | 28.0 °C | 20 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 5 Sept after | 28.6 °C | 18 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 6 Sept after | 29.4 °C | 19 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 7 Sept after | 29.9 °C | 20 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 8 Sept after | 29.5 °C | 23 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 9 Sept after | 29.2 °C | 26 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 10 Sept after | 29.5 °C | 30 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 11 Sept after | 28.1 °C | 31 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 12 Sept after | 29.5 °C | 26 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
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 28 August 2025 the air beside the fire reached 115 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 62: 4.1 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 · 622Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 35,869 haLupososhiAugust 2019 · 17 days · 13 km away
- 34,216 haLupososhi26 August 2021 · 14 days · 15 km away
- 110,204 haChipili9 August 2025 · 32 days · 32 km away
- 156,557 haLupososhi25 July 2026 · 65 days · 33 km away
- 36,195 haChipili26 July 2024 · 21 days · 36 km away
- 36,517 haKawambwa2 September 2020 · 9 days · 40 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Lupososhi fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 24 August 2025 and 2 September 2025: 10 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 9,274 hectares (92.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Lupososhi (9,324 ha, 2.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 30.3 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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.