Luwingu fire, 18 August 2026 Kanchibiya, Shiwang'Andu, Kasama
The fire started on 18 August 2026 in Luwingu, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 42 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 399,650 hectares from heat detections, spread across 6 municipalities.
This page is probably a fire complex, not a single fire. GWIS merges into one perimeter the fires that touch over weeks, which in large burning seasons can join dozens of separate fires. The total area is reliable; the origin and dates refer to the whole complex.
Other fire pages in the same area and on the same dates:
- 69,224 haLuwingu5 August 2026 · 52 days
- 15,594 haKasama 26 August 2026 · 34 days
- 14,563 haKasama11 August 2026 · 28 days
- 10,715 haMpika 13 September 2026 · 18 days
- 8,146 haKasama21 August 2026 · 17 days
- 8,035 haChilubi6 August 2026 · 19 days
- 7,183 haLuwingu15 August 2026 · 6 days
- 6,942 haMpika27 August 2026 · 20 days
It is the largest fire in Northern since 2016 (of 628 with a page). Number 2 in Zambia in 2026, of 613.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 399,650ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 42days
- 18 Aug 2026 – 28 Sept 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 6
- districts
- Started on
- 18 Aug
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 9,014
- in a single hotspot: 235 MW
- Danger at start
- 35
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 2.3GW
- 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: 1.7 mm on 1 Oct.
This area had burned before
96% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 158,416 ha in 2016, 139,849 ha in 2017, 59,296 ha in 2018, 159,030 ha in 2019, 185,278 ha in 2020, 155,087 ha in 2021, 133,610 ha in 2022, 100,530 ha in 2023, 104,570 ha in 2024, 238,206 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 382,314 ha that had burned before.
- 99,866 ha Kanchibiya fire, August 2025 295,035 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 57,821 ha Shiwang'Andu fire, August 2025 135,612 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 55,458 ha Kasama fire, August 2025 91,611 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 37,344 ha Shiwang'Andu fire, September 2017 70,260 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 35,580 ha Kanchibiya fire, September 2020 45,848 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 33,991 ha Shiwang'Andu fire, September 2020 46,304 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 27,136 ha Shiwang'Andu fire, September 2016 57,216 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 22,661 ha Shiwang'Andu fire, September 2021 30,143 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
-
167,367 ha reached on 19 Aug19 %
-
91,435 ha reached on 19 Aug9.9 %
-
89,075 ha reached on 18 Aug8.4 %
-
Luwingu where it started31,864 ha reached on 18 Aug6.5 %
-
13,829 ha reached on 18 Aug2.7 %
-
8,448 ha reached on 19 Aug0.5 %
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 279 hectares of built-up land and about 36,000 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18 Aug | 27.1 °C | 25 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 19 Aug | 26.9 °C | 26 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 20 Aug | 27.1 °C | 30 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 21 Aug | 27.5 °C | 29 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 22 Aug | 28.9 °C | 28 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 23 Aug | 28.3 °C | 35 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 24 Aug | 29.0 °C | 33 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 25 Aug | 28.6 °C | 38 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 26 Aug | 29.8 °C | 36 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 27 Aug | 29.2 °C | 36 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 28 Aug | 27.6 °C | 37 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 29 Aug | 29.0 °C | 35 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 30 Aug | 29.6 °C | 29 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 31 Aug | 30.0 °C | 31 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 1 Sept | 30.1 °C | 31 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 2 Sept | 30.1 °C | 32 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 3 Sept | 30.4 °C | 31 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 4 Sept | 32.1 °C | 28 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 5 Sept | 30.6 °C | 34 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 6 Sept | 30.8 °C | 34 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 7 Sept | 30.3 °C | 34 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 8 Sept | 27.6 °C | 36 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 9 Sept | 26.3 °C | 39 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 10 Sept | 28.4 °C | 35 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 11 Sept | 30.1 °C | 32 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 12 Sept | 30.9 °C | 28 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 13 Sept | 30.8 °C | 28 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 14 Sept | 31.1 °C | 30 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 15 Sept | 31.3 °C | 31 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 16 Sept | 31.1 °C | 25 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 17 Sept | 29.7 °C | 25 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 18 Sept | 30.5 °C | 27 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 19 Sept | 30.9 °C | 31 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 20 Sept | 30.9 °C | 30 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 21 Sept | 31.0 °C | 35 % | 33 km/h | 0.2 mm | Very high 38 |
| 22 Sept | 29.3 °C | 39 % | 38 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 35 |
| 23 Sept | 31.2 °C | 39 % | 33 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 34 |
| 24 Sept | 31.3 °C | 30 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 25 Sept | 31.0 °C | 31 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 26 Sept | 31.8 °C | 31 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 27 Sept | 33.6 °C | 28 % | 32 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 36 |
| 28 Sept | 34.0 °C | 27 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 29 Sept after | 32.1 °C | 32 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 30 Sept after | 31.0 °C | 32 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 1 Oct after | 29.5 °C | 37 % | 37 km/h | 1.7 mm | Moderate 21 |
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 5 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 160 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 85: 5.7 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 · 9,014Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 26,796 haChilubiSeptember 2024 · 11 days · 8 km away
- 22,852 haLuwingu27 August 2016 · 21 days · 13 km away
- 25,335 haKasama26 August 2019 · 16 days · 14 km away
- 91,611 haKasama20 August 2025 · 31 days · 15 km away
- 24,987 haKasama5 September 2021 · 8 days · 20 km away
- 69,224 haLuwingu5 August 2026 · 52 days · 37 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Luwingu fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 18 August 2026 to 28 September 2026 (42 days). The perimeter dates it from 23 August 2026 to 21 September 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 399,650 hectares (3,996.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 6 municipalities: Kanchibiya (167,367 ha, 19 %); Shiwang'Andu (91,435 ha, 9.9 %); Kasama (89,075 ha, 8.4 %); Luwingu (31,864 ha, 6.5 %); Chilubi (13,829 ha, 2.7 %); Mpika (8,448 ha, 0.5 %).
- Is the Luwingu fire still active?
- No fire detections since 29 Sept 2026, 12:21 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 34.0 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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
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; 14 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 23 August 2026 to 21 September 2026. 9,014 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.