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Mansa fire, 25 August 2020 Mansa, Lupososhi, Chipili

Out · last detection 24 Sept 2020, 22:51 UTC

The fire started on 25 August 2020 in Mansa, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 30 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 280,384 hectares from heat detections, spread across 5 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:

It is the 3th largest in Luapula since 2016 (of 533 with a page). The largest in Zambia in 2020, of 229.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Mansa · 2016Mansa · 2019Mansa · 2021Mansa · 2023

Burnt area
280,384ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
30days
25 Aug 2020 – 23 Sept 2020
Municipalities hit
5
districts
Started on
25 Aug
2020
Heat detections
12,037
in a single hotspot: 137 MW
Danger at start
30
High · FWI index
Average daily power
4.3GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 25 Aug23 Sept
24 Sept 2020

How it evolved, day by day

25 Aug 2020 · 1,174 MW · 85 26 Aug 2020 · 1,039 MW · 97 27 Aug 2020 · 1,704 MW · 186 28 Aug 2020 · 4,425 MW · 365 29 Aug 2020 · 4,810 MW · 448 30 Aug 2020 · 3,363 MW · 285 31 Aug 2020 · 6,331 MW · 452 1 Sept 2020 · 9,430 MW · 890 2 Sept 2020 · 13,447 MW · 1105 3 Sept 2020 · 9,676 MW · 851 4 Sept 2020 · 11,738 MW · 785 5 Sept 2020 · 12,084 MW · 1241 6 Sept 2020 · 12,987 MW · 884 7 Sept 2020 · 7,058 MW · 530 8 Sept 2020 · 5,247 MW · 504 9 Sept 2020 · 7,136 MW · 460 10 Sept 2020 · 3,863 MW · 323 11 Sept 2020 · 4,342 MW · 281 12 Sept 2020 · 2,062 MW · 330 13 Sept 2020 · 1,471 MW · 142 14 Sept 2020 · 864 MW · 99 15 Sept 2020 · 1,315 MW · 142 16 Sept 2020 · 668 MW · 74 17 Sept 2020 · 1,585 MW · 170 18 Sept 2020 · 816 MW · 126 19 Sept 2020 · 1,355 MW · 101 20 Sept 2020 · 1,231 MW · 79 21 Sept 2020 · 449 MW · 54 22 Sept 2020 · 336 MW · 52 23 Sept 2020 · 55 MW · 10 24 Sept 2020 · 194 MW · 26
25 Aug 30 Aug 2 Sept 4 Sept 9 Sept 14 Sept 19 Sept 24 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

33°high
57km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

82% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 169,370 ha in 2016, 154,368 ha in 2017, 111,696 ha in 2018, 21,843 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 231,060 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

20 km
It burned the equivalent of 1.8 times the area of London (2,804 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

  1. Mansa where it started
    193,669 ha reached on 18 Aug
    25 %
  2. Lupososhi
    62,313 ha reached on 18 Aug
    15 %
  3. Chipili
    14,918 ha reached on 18 Aug
    3.5 %
  4. Chifunabuli
    7,852 ha reached on 18 Aug
    2.6 %
  5. Mwense
    3,430 ha reached on 18 Aug
    1.4 %

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.

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)
25 Aug 28.2 °C 39 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
26 Aug 29.5 °C 34 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
27 Aug 29.5 °C 30 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
28 Aug 30.2 °C 33 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
29 Aug 31.1 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
30 Aug 32.6 °C 23 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
31 Aug 31.2 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
1 Sept 30.3 °C 24 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
2 Sept 27.7 °C 29 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
3 Sept 27.3 °C 31 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
4 Sept 26.9 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
5 Sept 26.8 °C 24 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
6 Sept 27.2 °C 26 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
7 Sept 27.3 °C 26 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
8 Sept 27.8 °C 20 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
9 Sept 26.5 °C 23 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
10 Sept 26.5 °C 25 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
11 Sept 27.8 °C 24 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
12 Sept 28.0 °C 30 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
13 Sept 28.1 °C 35 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
14 Sept 30.0 °C 29 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
15 Sept 30.6 °C 26 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
16 Sept 31.6 °C 23 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
17 Sept 32.6 °C 21 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
18 Sept 31.3 °C 23 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
19 Sept 30.8 °C 23 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
20 Sept 30.9 °C 24 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
21 Sept 32.3 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
22 Sept 31.3 °C 21 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
23 Sept 29.0 °C 29 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
24 Sept after 29.3 °C 26 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
25 Sept after 31.2 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
26 Sept after 32.9 °C 20 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
27 Sept after 34.1 °C 17 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
28 Sept after 33.4 °C 22 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
29 Sept after 32.2 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
30 Sept after 32.1 °C 28 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
1 Oct after 32.6 °C 22 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
2 Oct after 33.2 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
3 Oct after 32.4 °C 21 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 18 Aug 2020
After · 30 Sept 2020

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 12,037Every 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 Mansa fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 25 August 2020 and 23 September 2020: 30 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 280,384 hectares (2,803.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 5 municipalities: Mansa (193,669 ha, 25 %); Lupososhi (62,313 ha, 15 %); Chipili (14,918 ha, 3.5 %); Chifunabuli (7,852 ha, 2.6 %); Mwense (3,430 ha, 1.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.6 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 57 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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.

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; 5 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 12,037 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.

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.