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Manyinga fire, June 2026 Manyinga

Out · last detection 10 Jul 2026, 12:40 UTC

The fire started on 27 June 2026 in Manyinga, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,741 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 172th largest in North-Western since 2016 (of 286 with a page). Number 390 in Zambia in 2026, of 610.

Burnt area
3,741ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
17days
27 Jun 2026 – 13 Jul 2026
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
27 Jun
2026
Heat detections
69
in a single hotspot: 59 MW
Danger at start
36
High · FWI index
Energy released
378MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 Jul 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Jun13 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

27293012345678910

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

30°high
42km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone 47 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

60% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,895 ha in 2017, 974 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,234 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Manyinga where it started
    3,768 ha reached on 24 Jun
    0.5 %

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)
27 Jun 26.2 °C 29 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
28 Jun 27.0 °C 26 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
29 Jun 27.0 °C 29 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
30 Jun 27.6 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
1 Jul 28.8 °C 26 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
2 Jul 29.8 °C 22 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
3 Jul 28.9 °C 27 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
4 Jul 28.2 °C 20 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
5 Jul 27.4 °C 20 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
6 Jul 26.3 °C 25 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
7 Jul 25.6 °C 30 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
8 Jul 26.1 °C 31 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
9 Jul 26.7 °C 29 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
10 Jul 28.0 °C 22 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
11 Jul 28.6 °C 21 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
12 Jul 28.6 °C 22 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
13 Jul 28.7 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
14 Jul after 28.3 °C 30 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
15 Jul after 27.7 °C 19 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
16 Jul after 26.6 °C 18 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
17 Jul after 26.6 °C 15 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
18 Jul after 27.1 °C 13 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
19 Jul after 27.9 °C 14 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
20 Jul after 28.8 °C 14 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
21 Jul after 29.5 °C 11 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
22 Jul after 29.9 °C 15 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
23 Jul after 30.0 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 20 Jun 2026
After · 20 Jul 2026

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 · Copernicus

On 12 July 2026 the air beside the fire reached 55 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 38: 2.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak55 µg/m³
Days over the guideline12 days
PM1057 µg/m³
Optical depth0.49
25262728293012345678910111213141516
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 69Every 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 Manyinga fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 27 June 2026 and 13 July 2026: 17 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 3,741 hectares (37.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Manyinga (3,768 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.8 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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.

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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.