How long did the Manyinga fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 8 September 2026 and 19 September 2026: 12 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 3,078 hectares (30.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Manyinga (3,096 ha, 0.4 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 34.8 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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.

ZM · Zambia · 2026-09-08 → 2026-09-19

Manyinga fire, 8 September 2026 Manyinga

Out · last detection 19 Sept 2026, 12:10 UTC

The fire started on 8 September 2026 in Manyinga, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,078 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 274th largest in North-Western since 2016 (of 286 with a page). Number 579 in Zambia in 2026, of 604.

The power measured by the satellite is low (29.7 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area: 3,078ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 12days; 8 Sept 2026 – 19 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 8 Sept; 2026
Heat detections: 47; in a single hotspot: 30 MW
Danger at start: 39; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 424MW; sum of detected power

Play back 19 Sept 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Sept19 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

81113141516171819

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

The weather it burned in

35°high

47km/h · peak gust

10%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.3 mm on 21 Sept.

This area had burned before

20% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 229 ha in 2020, 559 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 604 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Manyinga where it started

3,096 ha reached on 8 Sept

0.4 %

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)
8 Sept	31.7 °C	19 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
9 Sept	30.0 °C	26 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
10 Sept	30.2 °C	27 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
11 Sept	31.7 °C	22 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
12 Sept	32.9 °C	21 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
13 Sept	34.3 °C	20 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
14 Sept	34.8 °C	17 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
15 Sept	34.3 °C	20 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
16 Sept	34.6 °C	10 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
17 Sept	34.0 °C	11 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
18 Sept	33.7 °C	12 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 50
19 Sept	33.6 °C	18 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
20 Sept after	29.4 °C	35 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
21 Sept after	29.9 °C	42 %	36 km/h	1.3 mm	Moderate 18

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 1 Sept 2026

After · 26 Sept 2026

Before After

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 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 131 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 98: 6.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak131 µg/m³

Days over the guideline15 days

PM10134 µg/m³

Optical depth1.71

WHO 15

678910111213141516171819202122

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 · 47Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Zambia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Manyinga fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 8 September 2026 and 19 September 2026: 12 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 3,078 hectares (30.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Manyinga (3,096 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 34.8 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

Where it burned