How long did the Lupososhi fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 6 September 2026 to 19 September 2026 (14 days). The perimeter dates it from 7 September 2026 to 19 September 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,309 hectares (33.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Lupososhi (3,055 ha, 0.7 %); Luwingu (275 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 30.6 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, 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.

ZM · Zambia · 2026-09-06 → 2026-09-19

Lupososhi fire, 6 September 2026 Lupososhi, Luwingu

Out · last detection 17 Sept 2026, 11:08 UTC

The fire started on 6 September 2026 in Lupososhi, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,309 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 533th largest in Northern since 2016 (of 629 with a page). Number 493 in Zambia in 2026, of 616.

The power measured by the satellite is low (24.8 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Lupososhi · 2025 Luwingu · 2018 Lupososhi · 2022 Lupososhi · 2019

Burnt area: 3,309ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 14days; 6 Sept 2026 – 19 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit: 2; districts
Started on: 6 Sept; 2026
Heat detections: 65; in a single hotspot: 25 MW
Danger at start: 32; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 50MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Sept19 Sept

Play back 17 Sept 2026

How it evolved, day by day

6 Sept 8 Sept 11 Sept 13 Sept 15 Sept 17 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

31°high

49km/h · peak gust

29%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.3 mm on 27 Sept.

This area had burned before

98% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,811 ha in 2016, 6 ha in 2017, 1,944 ha in 2018, 1,106 ha in 2019, 1,465 ha in 2020, 2,149 ha in 2021, 1,530 ha in 2022, 2,192 ha in 2023, 1,647 ha in 2024, 2,890 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,257 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 2.1% of the area of London (33 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

3,055 ha reached on 7 Sept

0.7 %
Luwingu

275 ha reached on 6 Sept

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.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025

Built-up area2.8 ha

Residents≈ 400

Inside the perimeter there were about 2.8 hectares of built-up land and about 400 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)
6 Sept	29.8 °C	39 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
7 Sept	30.0 °C	35 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
8 Sept	27.7 °C	37 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
9 Sept	27.8 °C	38 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
10 Sept	27.9 °C	37 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
11 Sept	29.1 °C	36 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
12 Sept	29.8 °C	35 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
13 Sept	30.2 °C	34 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
14 Sept	30.4 °C	34 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
15 Sept	30.5 °C	33 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
16 Sept	30.6 °C	29 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
17 Sept	29.5 °C	29 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
18 Sept	30.0 °C	30 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
19 Sept	30.0 °C	34 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
20 Sept after	30.8 °C	30 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
21 Sept after	29.7 °C	36 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
22 Sept after	30.3 °C	37 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
23 Sept after	30.4 °C	40 %	34 km/h	0.1 mm	High 32
24 Sept after	30.2 °C	36 %	30 km/h	0.1 mm	High 32
25 Sept after	30.4 °C	34 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
26 Sept after	31.3 °C	33 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
27 Sept after	32.0 °C	33 %	28 km/h	1.3 mm	High 22

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 30 Aug 2026

After · 26 Sept 2026

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.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 5 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 172 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 79: 5.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak172 µg/m³

Days over the guideline19 days

PM10178 µg/m³

Optical depth1.71

WHO 15

45678910111213141516171819202122

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 · 65Every 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

35,869 haLupososhiAugust 2019 · 31 days · 38 km away

All fires in Zambia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Lupososhi fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 6 September 2026 to 19 September 2026 (14 days). The perimeter dates it from 7 September 2026 to 19 September 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,309 hectares (33.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Lupososhi (3,055 ha, 0.7 %); Luwingu (275 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 30.6 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, 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

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

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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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 7 September 2026 to 19 September 2026. 65 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.

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