Mansa fire, 23 August 2025 Mansa, Mwense
The fire started on 23 August 2025 in Mansa, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,792 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 150th largest in Luapula since 2016 (of 533 with a page). Number 53 in Zambia in 2025, of 271.
- Burnt area
- 8,792ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 7days
- 23 Aug 2025 – 29 Aug 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 23 Aug
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 370
- in a single hotspot: 62 MW
- Danger at start
- 40
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 2.7GW
- 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
96% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,099 ha in 2016, 5,297 ha in 2017, 1,678 ha in 2018, 2,148 ha in 2019, 3,771 ha in 2020, 2,997 ha in 2021, 3,332 ha in 2022, 303 ha in 2023, 749 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 8,411 ha that had burned before.
- 3,747 ha Mansa fire, August 2020 280,384 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,844 ha Mansa fire, August 2017 29,616 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,251 ha Mansa fire, August 2016 80,978 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,089 ha Mansa fire, September 2022 3,019 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 252 ha Mansa fire, August 2021 259,734 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 226 ha Mwense fire, August 2019 5,585 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 163 ha Mansa fire, August 2017 258,414 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 87 ha Mansa fire, August 2024 79,600 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Mansa where it started6,102 ha reached on 16 Aug0.8 %
-
2,747 ha reached on 18 Aug1.1 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23 Aug | 28.4 °C | 23 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 24 Aug | 28.2 °C | 22 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 25 Aug | 30.9 °C | 27 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 26 Aug | 31.5 °C | 27 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 27 Aug | 29.4 °C | 20 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 28 Aug | 29.8 °C | 22 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 29 Aug | 29.7 °C | 20 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 30 Aug after | 29.0 °C | 20 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 31 Aug after | 28.6 °C | 21 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 1 Sept after | 28.8 °C | 20 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 2 Sept after | 28.4 °C | 22 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 3 Sept after | 27.9 °C | 27 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 4 Sept after | 28.5 °C | 20 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 5 Sept after | 29.2 °C | 21 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 6 Sept after | 30.1 °C | 21 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 7 Sept after | 30.5 °C | 20 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 8 Sept after | 30.4 °C | 21 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
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 74 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 40: 2.7 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 · 370Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Mansa fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 23 August 2025 and 29 August 2025: 7 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 8,792 hectares (87.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mansa (6,102 ha, 0.8 %); Mwense (2,747 ha, 1.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 31.5 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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.