Luwingu fire, 15 August 2025 Luwingu, Kasama
The fire started on 15 August 2025 in Luwingu, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,751 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 151th largest in Northern since 2016 (of 628 with a page). Number 72 in Zambia in 2025, of 271.
- Burnt area
- 6,751ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 13days
- 15 Aug 2025 – 27 Aug 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 15 Aug
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 256
- in a single hotspot: 132 MW
- Danger at start
- 33
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 3.1GW
- sum of detected power
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
90% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,285 ha in 2016, 1,210 ha in 2017, 258 ha in 2018, 2,164 ha in 2019, 2,331 ha in 2020, 2,513 ha in 2021, 2,973 ha in 2022, 1,982 ha in 2023, 3,120 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,065 ha that had burned before.
- 2,611 ha Luwingu fire, August 2024 9,429 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,266 ha Luwingu fire, September 2020 14,794 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,222 ha Luwingu fire, August 2021 18,404 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,203 ha Luwingu fire, August 2016 22,852 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,968 ha Luwingu fire, September 2022 13,827 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,888 ha Luwingu fire, August 2019 4,452 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,128 ha Luwingu fire, August 2023 3,932 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 276 ha Kasama fire, August 2019 25,335 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Luwingu where it started6,762 ha reached on 15 Aug1.4 %
-
36 ha0.0 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 Aug | 27.7 °C | 33 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 16 Aug | 28.2 °C | 30 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 17 Aug | 28.5 °C | 23 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 18 Aug | 27.1 °C | 24 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 19 Aug | 27.0 °C | 23 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 20 Aug | 27.1 °C | 26 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 21 Aug | 27.7 °C | 25 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 22 Aug | 28.6 °C | 23 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 23 Aug | 28.2 °C | 21 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 24 Aug | 28.4 °C | 26 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 25 Aug | 30.8 °C | 29 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 26 Aug | 31.7 °C | 20 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 27 Aug | 28.7 °C | 25 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 28 Aug after | 30.5 °C | 18 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 29 Aug after | 30.3 °C | 16 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 30 Aug after | 29.4 °C | 20 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 31 Aug after | 29.0 °C | 22 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 1 Sept after | 29.7 °C | 19 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 2 Sept after | 28.7 °C | 25 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 3 Sept after | 28.5 °C | 25 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 4 Sept after | 29.8 °C | 17 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 5 Sept after | 29.9 °C | 19 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 6 Sept after | 30.6 °C | 20 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
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 91 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 51: 3.4 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 · 256Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 25,335 haKasama26 August 2019 · 16 days · 10 km away
- 22,852 haLuwingu27 August 2016 · 21 days · 10 km away
- 91,611 haKasama20 August 2025 · 31 days · 13 km away
- 399,650 haLuwingu23 August 2026 · 30 days · 22 km away
- 26,796 haChilubiSeptember 2024 · 11 days · 30 km away
- 24,987 haKasama5 September 2021 · 8 days · 30 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Luwingu fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 15 August 2025 and 27 August 2025: 13 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 6,751 hectares (67.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Luwingu (6,762 ha, 1.4 %); Kasama (36 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 31.7 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 42 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
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.