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Lupososhi fire, 3 August 2026 Lupososhi

Out · last detection 21 Aug 2026, 11:15 UTC

The fire started on 3 August 2026 in Lupososhi, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,788 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 261th largest in Northern since 2016 (of 628 with a page). Number 244 in Zambia in 2026, of 610.

Burnt area
4,788ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
18days
3 Aug 2026 – 20 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
3 Aug
2026
Heat detections
78
in a single hotspot: 34 MW
Danger at start
27
High · FWI index
Energy released
701MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

21 Aug 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Aug20 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

678910111213141516172021

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

30°high
49km/h · peak gust
27%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

94% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,144 ha in 2016, 1,795 ha in 2017, 1,598 ha in 2019, 1,262 ha in 2020, 1,496 ha in 2021, 650 ha in 2022, 1,052 ha in 2024, 2,676 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,514 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Lupososhi where it started
    4,818 ha reached on 6 Aug
    1.2 %

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)
3 Aug 23.5 °C 40 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
4 Aug 24.2 °C 40 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
5 Aug 24.8 °C 42 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
6 Aug 25.3 °C 42 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
7 Aug 26.2 °C 43 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
8 Aug 26.5 °C 44 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
9 Aug 27.1 °C 42 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
10 Aug 29.6 °C 31 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
11 Aug 29.3 °C 31 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
12 Aug 28.5 °C 31 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
13 Aug 25.6 °C 44 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
14 Aug 23.5 °C 45 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
15 Aug 24.2 °C 39 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
16 Aug 24.3 °C 36 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
17 Aug 25.0 °C 32 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
18 Aug 25.8 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
19 Aug 25.8 °C 28 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
20 Aug 25.8 °C 34 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
21 Aug after 26.2 °C 32 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
22 Aug after 27.7 °C 30 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
23 Aug after 27.6 °C 37 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
24 Aug after 29.0 °C 35 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
25 Aug after 27.5 °C 42 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
26 Aug after 28.7 °C 39 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
27 Aug after 28.6 °C 39 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
28 Aug after 27.0 °C 41 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
29 Aug after 27.9 °C 39 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
30 Aug after 29.0 °C 31 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
31 Aug after 29.3 °C 32 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 34

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 27 Jul 2026
After · 27 Aug 2026

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 6 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 40 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 28: 1.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak40 µg/m³
Days over the guideline21 days
PM1044 µg/m³
Optical depth0.79
123456789101112131415161718192021222324
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 · 78Every 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 Lupososhi fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 August 2026 and 20 August 2026: 18 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 4,788 hectares (47.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Lupososhi (4,818 ha, 1.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.6 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, class 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.

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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.