How long did the Mazabuka fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 25 May 2016 to 20 June 2016 (27 days). The perimeter dates it from 1 June 2016 to 15 June 2016.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 4,950 hectares (49.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mazabuka (4,945 ha, 1.2 %); Mumbwa (26 ha, 0.0 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 26.4 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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.

ZM · Zambia · 2016-05-25 → 2016-06-20

Mazabuka fire, 25 May 2016 Mazabuka, Mumbwa

Out · last detection 20 Jun 2016, 11:38 UTC

The fire started on 25 May 2016 in Mazabuka, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 27 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,950 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 20th largest in Southern since 2016 (of 58 with a page). Number 99 in Zambia in 2016, of 246.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Mazabuka · 2024 Mazabuka · 2016 Mazabuka · 2016 Mumbwa · 2019

Burnt area: 4,950ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 27days; 25 May 2016 – 20 Jun 2016
Municipalities hit: 2; districts
Started on: 25 May; 2016
Heat detections: 176; in a single hotspot: 85 MW
Danger at start: 27; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 103MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 25 May20 Jun

Play back 20 Jun 2016

How it evolved, day by day

25 May 31 May 3 Jun 6 Jun 9 Jun 12 Jun 16 Jun

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

The weather it burned in

26°high

50km/h · peak gust

29%lowest humidity

It had gone 49 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 3.1% of the area of London (50 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

Mazabuka where it started

4,945 ha reached on 28 May

1.2 %
Mumbwa

26 ha reached on 25 May

0.0 %

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.

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)
1 Jun	24.7 °C	32 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
2 Jun	24.3 °C	36 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
3 Jun	25.4 °C	40 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
4 Jun	25.4 °C	35 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
5 Jun	26.4 °C	37 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
6 Jun	24.3 °C	47 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
7 Jun	25.0 °C	40 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
8 Jun	24.2 °C	36 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
9 Jun	23.6 °C	35 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
10 Jun	23.8 °C	35 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
11 Jun	24.9 °C	31 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
12 Jun	25.5 °C	29 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
13 Jun	20.9 °C	48 %	46 km/h	0.3 mm	High 34
14 Jun	23.4 °C	39 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
15 Jun	25.4 °C	32 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
16 Jun	26.1 °C	34 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
17 Jun	26.6 °C	32 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
18 Jun	25.9 °C	32 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
19 Jun	25.7 °C	29 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
20 Jun	26.1 °C	30 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
21 Jun after	26.3 °C	31 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
22 Jun after	25.1 °C	28 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
23 Jun after	22.6 °C	36 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
24 Jun after	21.5 °C	43 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
25 Jun after	22.2 °C	37 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 18 May 2016

After · 27 Jun 2016

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.

Detections table · 176Every 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 Mazabuka fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 25 May 2016 to 20 June 2016 (27 days). The perimeter dates it from 1 June 2016 to 15 June 2016.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 4,950 hectares (49.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mazabuka (4,945 ha, 1.2 %); Mumbwa (26 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 26.4 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

RSS Changes to this page

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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What really happened?

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How we know this

Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 1 June 2016 to 15 June 2016. 176 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.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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