Lupososhi fire, 12 September 2026 Lupososhi
The fire started on 12 September 2026 in Lupososhi, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 21 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,906 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 399th largest in Northern since 2016 (of 628 with a page). Number 367 in Zambia in 2026, of 618.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 3,906ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 21days
- 12 Sept 2026 – 2 Oct 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 12 Sept
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 128
- in a single hotspot: 317 MW
- Danger at start
- 32
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 227MW
- 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. Rain came after the fire: 1.8 mm on 4 Oct.
This area had burned before
100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,841 ha in 2016, 306 ha in 2017, 599 ha in 2018, 2,608 ha in 2019, 1,831 ha in 2020, 464 ha in 2021, 1,590 ha in 2022, 1,092 ha in 2023, 1,768 ha in 2024, 2,657 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,923 ha that had burned before.
- 1,197 ha Lupososhi fire, September 2025 6,173 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 746 ha Lupososhi fire, September 2020 3,443 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 506 ha Lupososhi fire, September 2022 7,786 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 433 ha Lupososhi fire, August 2019 35,869 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 122 ha Lupososhi fire, August 2020 4,070 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 41 ha Lupososhi fire, August 2018 8,962 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 39 ha Chipili fire, August 2025 14,068 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 15 ha Lupososhi fire, August 2025 3,818 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
-
Lupososhi where it started3,929 ha reached on 12 Sept1.0 %
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 1.1 hectares of built-up land and about 150 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12 Sept | 29.9 °C | 35 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 13 Sept | 30.3 °C | 34 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 14 Sept | 30.7 °C | 33 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 15 Sept | 30.8 °C | 33 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 16 Sept | 30.7 °C | 28 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 17 Sept | 29.8 °C | 29 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 18 Sept | 30.2 °C | 29 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 19 Sept | 30.3 °C | 33 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 20 Sept | 31.1 °C | 30 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 21 Sept | 29.9 °C | 36 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 22 Sept | 30.7 °C | 37 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 23 Sept | 30.6 °C | 40 % | 36 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 32 |
| 24 Sept | 30.2 °C | 36 % | 34 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 33 |
| 25 Sept | 30.4 °C | 35 % | 43 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 35 |
| 26 Sept | 31.5 °C | 33 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 27 Sept | 32.4 °C | 32 % | 27 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 30 |
| 28 Sept | 32.6 °C | 34 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 29 Sept | 31.6 °C | 37 % | 28 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 31 |
| 30 Sept | 30.9 °C | 31 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 1 Oct | 29.3 °C | 38 % | 44 km/h | 1.1 mm | High 23 |
| 2 Oct | 27.8 °C | 48 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 3 Oct after | 27.8 °C | 52 % | 38 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 24 |
| 4 Oct after | 30.4 °C | 41 % | 37 km/h | 1.8 mm | Moderate 16 |
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 15 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 58 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 46: 3.1 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 · 128Every 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 · 31 days · 13 km away
- 34,216 haLupososhi26 August 2021 · 21 days · 20 km away
- 156,557 haChipiliJuly 2026 · 65 days · 29 km away
- 110,204 haChipili7 August 2025 · 41 days · 31 km away
- 36,195 haChipili20 July 2024 · 34 days · 31 km away
- 296,161 haMansa8 August 2025 · 51 days · 35 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Lupososhi fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 12 September 2026 to 2 October 2026 (21 days). The perimeter dates it from 19 September 2026 to 28 September 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,906 hectares (39.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Lupososhi (3,929 ha, 1.0 %).
- Is the Lupososhi fire still active?
- No fire detections since 2 Oct 2026, 11:25 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 32.6 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 44 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
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.
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 19 September 2026 to 28 September 2026. 128 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.