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Manyinga fire, July 2026 Manyinga

Out · last detection 2 Aug 2026, 12:08 UTC

The fire started on 18 July 2026 in Manyinga, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,960 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 40th largest in North-Western since 2016 (of 286 with a page). Number 142 in Zambia in 2026, of 610.

Burnt area
6,960ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
15days
18 Jul 2026 – 1 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
18 Jul
2026
Heat detections
168
in a single hotspot: 64 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

2 Aug 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Jul1 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

1819202122232425262728303112

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
11%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

60% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 748 ha in 2022, 19 ha in 2023, 759 ha in 2024, 3,062 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,148 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Manyinga where it started
    7,013 ha reached on 17 Jul
    0.9 %

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)
18 Jul 27.0 °C 13 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
19 Jul 27.9 °C 14 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
20 Jul 28.8 °C 14 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
21 Jul 29.5 °C 11 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
22 Jul 29.9 °C 15 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
23 Jul 30.0 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
24 Jul 28.8 °C 19 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
25 Jul 28.3 °C 21 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
26 Jul 27.3 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
27 Jul 27.0 °C 25 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
28 Jul 28.2 °C 18 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
29 Jul 29.3 °C 17 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
30 Jul 29.3 °C 16 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
31 Jul 29.4 °C 13 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
1 Aug 28.1 °C 11 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
2 Aug after 26.8 °C 20 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
3 Aug after 27.6 °C 18 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
4 Aug after 28.3 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
5 Aug after 28.9 °C 17 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
6 Aug after 28.2 °C 16 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
7 Aug after 29.4 °C 15 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
8 Aug after 29.0 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
9 Aug after 30.0 °C 24 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
10 Aug after 31.6 °C 11 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
11 Aug after 30.2 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 11 Jul 2026
After · 8 Aug 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 19 July 2026 the air beside the fire reached 138 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 60: 4.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak138 µg/m³
Days over the guideline19 days
PM10140 µg/m³
Optical depth0.55
161718192021222324252627282930311234
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 · 168Every 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 18 July 2026 and 1 August 2026: 15 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 6,960 hectares (69.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Manyinga (7,013 ha, 0.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.0 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, 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.