Mansa fire, 21 August 2022 Mansa, Lupososhi, Chifunabuli
The fire started on 21 August 2022 in Mansa, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 28 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 185,598 hectares from heat detections, spread across 4 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:
- 24,417 haMwense27 August 2022 · 15 days
- 15,974 haMilengi22 August 2022 · 12 days
- 14,251 haChipili20 August 2022 · 10 days
- 13,759 haLupososhi2 September 2022 · 13 days
- 10,700 haChipili18 August 2022 · 5 days
- 6,383 haMansa2 September 2022 · 10 days
- 5,056 haMansa2 September 2022 · 11 days
- 4,844 haMwense19 August 2022 · 7 days
It is the 7th largest in Luapula since 2016 (of 533 with a page). The largest in Zambia in 2022, of 235.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Mansa · 2020Mansa · 2017Mansa · 2021Mansa · 2019
- Burnt area
- 185,598ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 28days
- 21 Aug 2022 – 17 Sept 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 4
- districts
- Started on
- 21 Aug
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 7,253
- in a single hotspot: 188 MW
- Danger at start
- 47
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 2.6GW
- 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.
This area had burned before
100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 133,163 ha in 2016, 128,884 ha in 2017, 92,119 ha in 2018, 122,878 ha in 2019, 134,039 ha in 2020, 130,570 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 185,316 ha that had burned before.
- 129,143 ha Mansa fire, August 2020 280,384 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 123,297 ha Mansa fire, August 2017 258,414 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 120,573 ha Mansa fire, August 2021 259,734 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 114,473 ha Mansa fire, August 2019 190,302 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 74,543 ha Mansa fire, August 2016 136,692 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 52,591 ha Mansa fire, August 2018 83,277 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 34,831 ha Mansa fire, August 2016 80,978 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 15,082 ha Mansa fire, August 2018 34,977 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
-
Mansa where it started130,430 ha reached on 16 Aug17 %
-
44,507 ha reached on 19 Aug11 %
-
9,916 ha reached on 16 Aug3.2 %
-
1,923 ha reached on 16 Aug0.4 %
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.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2020Inside the perimeter there were about 211 hectares of built-up land and about 46,000 residents (GHSL 2020, 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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21 Aug | 29.8 °C | 25 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 22 Aug | 26.9 °C | 31 % | 60 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 23 Aug | 26.8 °C | 31 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 24 Aug | 26.9 °C | 35 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 25 Aug | 27.1 °C | 28 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 26 Aug | 28.0 °C | 28 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 27 Aug | 28.7 °C | 22 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 28 Aug | 28.6 °C | 21 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 29 Aug | 28.7 °C | 27 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 30 Aug | 28.6 °C | 23 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 31 Aug | 27.0 °C | 31 % | 58 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 1 Sept | 25.0 °C | 40 % | 55 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 2 Sept | 26.2 °C | 34 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 3 Sept | 28.8 °C | 30 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 4 Sept | 30.0 °C | 26 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 5 Sept | 30.6 °C | 23 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 6 Sept | 31.0 °C | 16 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 7 Sept | 28.3 °C | 25 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 8 Sept | 27.1 °C | 25 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 9 Sept | 27.8 °C | 29 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 10 Sept | 29.3 °C | 23 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 11 Sept | 29.7 °C | 26 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 12 Sept | 31.3 °C | 28 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 13 Sept | 29.8 °C | 26 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 14 Sept | 27.9 °C | 31 % | 58 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 15 Sept | 28.5 °C | 29 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 16 Sept | 29.6 °C | 26 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 17 Sept | 30.4 °C | 26 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 18 Sept after | 31.2 °C | 25 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 19 Sept after | 30.6 °C | 37 % | 26 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 30 |
| 20 Sept after | 33.2 °C | 20 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 21 Sept after | 33.3 °C | 20 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 22 Sept after | 31.9 °C | 19 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 23 Sept after | 31.5 °C | 19 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 24 Sept after | 31.0 °C | 15 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 25 Sept after | 31.0 °C | 22 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 26 Sept after | 31.8 °C | 21 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 27 Sept after | 32.1 °C | 24 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
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.
Detections table · 7,253Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 259,734 haMansa24 August 2021 · 22 days · 21 km away
- 258,414 haMansa21 August 2017 · 34 days · 23 km away
- 133,309 haMansa27 August 2023 · 23 days · 25 km away
- 190,302 haMansa21 August 2019 · 36 days · 29 km away
- 280,384 haMansa25 August 2020 · 30 days · 31 km away
- 296,161 haMansa15 August 2025 · 37 days · 35 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Mansa fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 21 August 2022 and 17 September 2022: 28 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 185,598 hectares (1,856.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 4 municipalities: Mansa (130,430 ha, 17 %); Lupososhi (44,507 ha, 11 %); Chifunabuli (9,916 ha, 3.2 %); Chipili (1,923 ha, 0.4 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 31.3 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 60 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, class Extreme.
- 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; 11 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 7,253 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 2020, 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.