Mansa fire, 15 August 2025 Mansa, Lupososhi, Chipili
The fire started on 15 August 2025 in Mansa, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 37 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 296,161 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:
- 110,204 haChipili9 August 2025 · 32 days
- 23,838 haMilengi13 August 2025 · 27 days
- 22,744 haMansa11 August 2025 · 11 days
- 14,068 haChipili19 August 2025 · 12 days
- 11,799 haMilengi15 August 2025 · 14 days
- 10,933 haChipili16 August 2025 · 10 days
- 9,320 haMwense28 August 2025 · 12 days
- 9,274 haLupososhi24 August 2025 · 10 days
It is the 2th largest in Luapula since 2016 (of 533 with a page). The largest in Zambia in 2025, of 271.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Mansa · 2020Mansa · 2021Mansa · 2019Mansa · 2022
- Burnt area
- 296,161ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 37days
- 15 Aug 2025 – 20 Sept 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 5
- districts
- Started on
- 15 Aug
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 11,744
- in a single hotspot: 289 MW
- Danger at start
- 31
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 3.4GW
- 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
99% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 194,996 ha in 2016, 47,529 ha in 2017, 124,226 ha in 2018, 181,455 ha in 2019, 193,548 ha in 2020, 193,039 ha in 2021, 179,001 ha in 2022, 162,366 ha in 2023, 181,526 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 294,596 ha that had burned before.
- 177,912 ha Mansa fire, August 2020 280,384 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 170,776 ha Mansa fire, August 2021 259,734 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 144,806 ha Mansa fire, August 2019 190,302 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 135,389 ha Mansa fire, August 2022 185,598 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 108,632 ha Mansa fire, August 2023 133,309 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 97,638 ha Mansa fire, August 2016 136,692 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 89,991 ha Mansa fire, August 2024 104,574 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 54,870 ha Mansa fire, August 2018 83,277 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 started166,088 ha reached on 9 Aug22 %
-
87,625 ha reached on 9 Aug21 %
-
30,452 ha reached on 10 Aug7.1 %
-
12,246 ha reached on 9 Aug4.0 %
-
1,644 ha reached on 9 Aug0.7 %
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 383 hectares of built-up land and about 95,000 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9 Aug | 26.9 °C | 30 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 10 Aug | 26.7 °C | 28 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 11 Aug | 26.1 °C | 27 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 12 Aug | 25.1 °C | 30 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 13 Aug | 24.9 °C | 33 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 14 Aug | 26.1 °C | 32 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 15 Aug | 27.6 °C | 31 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 16 Aug | 27.2 °C | 30 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 17 Aug | 27.3 °C | 26 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 18 Aug | 25.7 °C | 23 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 19 Aug | 25.4 °C | 26 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 20 Aug | 26.0 °C | 27 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 21 Aug | 26.6 °C | 26 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 22 Aug | 27.5 °C | 26 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 23 Aug | 27.4 °C | 25 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 24 Aug | 27.8 °C | 24 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 25 Aug | 30.9 °C | 28 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 26 Aug | 30.5 °C | 27 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 27 Aug | 28.7 °C | 22 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 28 Aug | 29.4 °C | 23 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 29 Aug | 29.3 °C | 21 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 30 Aug | 28.6 °C | 22 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 31 Aug | 28.1 °C | 24 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 1 Sept | 28.3 °C | 22 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 2 Sept | 27.8 °C | 23 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 3 Sept | 27.5 °C | 28 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 4 Sept | 28.0 °C | 22 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 5 Sept | 29.0 °C | 20 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 6 Sept | 29.3 °C | 21 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 7 Sept | 29.8 °C | 22 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 8 Sept | 29.8 °C | 22 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 9 Sept | 29.9 °C | 25 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 10 Sept | 29.9 °C | 31 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 11 Sept | 29.2 °C | 30 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 12 Sept | 30.0 °C | 26 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 13 Sept | 30.6 °C | 24 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 14 Sept | 30.7 °C | 26 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 15 Sept | 31.1 °C | 22 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 16 Sept | 31.9 °C | 18 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 17 Sept | 32.5 °C | 17 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 18 Sept | 31.7 °C | 17 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 19 Sept | 30.9 °C | 31 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 20 Sept | 31.2 °C | 29 % | 56 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 21 Sept after | 29.8 °C | 29 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 22 Sept after | 31.4 °C | 29 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 23 Sept after | 31.8 °C | 26 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 24 Sept after | 32.1 °C | 21 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 25 Sept after | 31.6 °C | 25 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 26 Sept after | 31.6 °C | 24 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 27 Sept after | 32.7 °C | 23 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 28 Sept after | 33.2 °C | 25 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 29 Sept after | 34.1 °C | 24 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 30 Sept after | 32.6 °C | 25 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 1 Oct after | 28.9 °C | 44 % | 51 km/h | 0.8 mm | High 31 |
| 2 Oct after | 29.5 °C | 36 % | 47 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 34 |
| 3 Oct after | 31.2 °C | 17 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 4 Oct after | 28.7 °C | 17 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 5 Oct after | 29.7 °C | 23 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 6 Oct after | 31.1 °C | 22 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 7 Oct after | 31.1 °C | 25 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
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 2025 the air beside the fire reached 120 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 52: 3.5 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 · 11,744Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 104,574 haMansa25 August 2024 · 23 days · 24 km away
- 156,557 haLupososhi25 July 2026 · 65 days · 31 km away
- 185,598 haMansa21 August 2022 · 28 days · 35 km away
- 110,204 haChipili9 August 2025 · 32 days · 36 km away
- 259,734 haMansa24 August 2021 · 22 days · 38 km away
- 190,302 haMansa21 August 2019 · 36 days · 40 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Mansa fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 15 August 2025 and 20 September 2025: 37 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 296,161 hectares (2,961.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 5 municipalities: Mansa (166,088 ha, 22 %); Lupososhi (87,625 ha, 21 %); Chipili (30,452 ha, 7.1 %); Chifunabuli (12,246 ha, 4.0 %); Mwense (1,644 ha, 0.7 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 32.7 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 56 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.
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; 7 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 11,744 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.