Burned area
satellite only5,479ha
Perimeter published by GWIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 30 Jul 2023 – 15 Aug 2023
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
ZM · Zambia · –
Milengi fire, July 2023 Chembe, Milengi, Mansa
Out · last detection 16 Aug 2023, 11:46 UTC
The fire started on 30 July 2023 in Milengi, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,479 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 203th largest in Luapula since 2016 (of 449 with a page). Number 53 in Zambia in 2023, of 165.
Use this data
Compare with…
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-11-15matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only17days
30 Jul 2023 to 15 Aug 2023: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 16 Aug 2023, 11:46 UTC
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only30 Jul 2023
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 30 Jul 2023
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only179
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 47 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 30 Jul 2023 – 15 Aug 2023
+− cross-check
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
The worst day
satellite only323MW
Total radiative power on 5 August 2023; hotspots that day: 36.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 5 Aug 2023
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model37.5FWI · high
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 60.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 30 Jul 2023, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model29.2°C · 32% RH
High of 29.2 °C and minimum humidity of 32% on 15 August 2023; gusts of 55 km/h on 2 August 2023.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 30 Jul 2023 – 15 Aug 2023
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
logName: Chembe → Milengi.
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
logLast day with fire: 8 August 2023 → 15 August 2023.
-
logStart date: 31 July 2023 → 30 July 2023.
Area logged each night
Move the slider to see which area the page published each day.
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/milengi-2023-07?v=2026-11-15A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire milengi-2023-07.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-07-30 | 5 | 54 | 28.9 | 13.9 | 22 | 11.6 | 25.9 | 0 | 37.5 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-07-31 | 34 | 316 | 28 | 14.2 | 25 | 15.9 | 36 | 0 | 46.2 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2023-08-01 | 37 | 286 | 26 | 14.7 | 31 | 19.6 | 43.9 | 0 | 50 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2023-08-02 | 7 | 33 | 24.4 | 13.9 | 33 | 25.7 | 55.4 | 0 | 51.5 | extremo | 1 |
| 2023-08-03 | 6 | 22 | 22.8 | 12.5 | 33 | 24.1 | 50 | 0 | 38.3 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2023-08-04 | 12 | 84 | 23.1 | 11.9 | 33 | 17.9 | 40.7 | 0 | 37.5 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-08-05 | 36 | 323 | 24.3 | 11.8 | 31 | 17.4 | 39.2 | 0 | 37.3 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-08-06 | 6 | 95 | 25.9 | 14 | 32 | 20.3 | 45.4 | 0 | 42.2 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2023-08-07 | 2 | 26 | 25.4 | 13.9 | 28 | 18.9 | 42.8 | 0 | 40.5 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2023-08-08 | 1 | 1 | 24.8 | 14 | 29 | 17.4 | 41 | 0 | 38.3 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2023-08-09 | 3 | 20 | 25.9 | 14.5 | 28 | 19 | 41 | 0 | 40.6 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2023-08-10 | 13 | 106 | 24.5 | 13.8 | 28 | 20.6 | 45.4 | 0 | 43.7 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2023-08-11 | 12 | 96 | 24.8 | 13.2 | 32 | 16.9 | 38.2 | 0 | 39.7 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2023-08-12 | 1 | 2 | 25.3 | 12.8 | 28 | 17.8 | 34.9 | 0 | 34.2 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-08-13 | 0 | 0 | 25.8 | 13.2 | 30 | 15.8 | 36.7 | 0 | 35.5 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-08-14 | 0 | 0 | 27.7 | 13.8 | 33 | 16.3 | 37.8 | 0 | 38.3 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2023-08-15 | 2 | 12 | 29.2 | 15.9 | 32 | 15.3 | 36.4 | 0 | 37.9 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-08-16 | 2 | 8 | 29.1 | 17.4 | 27 | 19.2 | 43.9 | 0 | 47.5 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2023-08-17 | 0 | 0 | 27.6 | 17.1 | 29 | 19.7 | 43.2 | 0 | 43 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2023-08-18 | 0 | 0 | 27.7 | 15.5 | 28 | 16.4 | 37.8 | 0 | 39.7 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2023-08-19 | 0 | 0 | 28.3 | 15.9 | 29 | 15.1 | 34.9 | 0 | 39.6 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2023-08-20 | 0 | 0 | 29.7 | 16.5 | 29 | 15.9 | 36.7 | 0 | 41.9 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2023-08-21 | 0 | 0 | 30.7 | 17 | 27 | 14.1 | 32 | 0 | 41.1 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2023-08-22 | 0 | 0 | 31.2 | 16.5 | 22 | 15.1 | 35.3 | 0 | 45.8 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2023-08-23 | 0 | 0 | 30.2 | 17.5 | 21 | 15.5 | 36.4 | 0 | 50.4 | extremo | 0 |
| 2023-08-24 | 0 | 0 | 30.3 | 17.2 | 21 | 15.3 | 33.5 | 0 | 49.6 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2023-08-25 | 0 | 0 | 30 | 17.1 | 29 | 16.3 | 36.4 | 0 | 45.3 | muy_alto | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: GWIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 5,479ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 17days
- 30 Jul 2023 – 15 Aug 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- districts
- Started on
- 30 Jul
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 179
- in a single hotspot: 47 MW
- Danger at start
- 38
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 93MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
30 Jul15 Aug
16 Aug 2023
How it evolved, day by day
30 Jul
5 Aug
11 Aug
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
29°high
55km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
96% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,347 ha in 2016, 2,652 ha in 2017, 2,042 ha in 2018, 3,120 ha in 2019, 2,875 ha in 2020, 2,969 ha in 2021, 2,035 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,274 ha that had burned before.
- 2,924 ha Chembe fire, August 2021 8,510 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,875 ha Chembe fire, August 2020 7,320 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,291 ha Chembe fire, July 2016 4,071 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,273 ha Chembe fire, August 2017 3,763 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 638 ha Chembe fire, August 2018 3,681 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 190 ha Chembe fire, August 2017 20,908 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 189 ha Chembe fire, August 2017 6,091 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 30 ha Chembe fire, August 2016 5,493 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
-
5,327 ha2.4 %
-
Milengi where it started161 ha0.0 %
-
22 ha0.0 %
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)
Started with 60 days without rain: 91 % of the area in Zambia
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 30 Jul | 28.9 °C | 22 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 31 Jul | 28.0 °C | 25 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 1 Aug | 26.0 °C | 31 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 2 Aug | 24.4 °C | 33 % | 55 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 3 Aug | 22.8 °C | 33 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 4 Aug | 23.1 °C | 33 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 5 Aug | 24.3 °C | 31 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 6 Aug | 25.9 °C | 32 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 7 Aug | 25.4 °C | 28 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 8 Aug | 24.8 °C | 29 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 9 Aug | 25.9 °C | 28 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 10 Aug | 24.5 °C | 28 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 11 Aug | 24.8 °C | 32 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 12 Aug | 25.3 °C | 28 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 13 Aug | 25.8 °C | 30 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 14 Aug | 27.7 °C | 33 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 15 Aug | 29.2 °C | 32 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 16 Aug after | 29.1 °C | 27 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 17 Aug after | 27.6 °C | 29 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 18 Aug after | 27.7 °C | 28 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 19 Aug after | 28.3 °C | 29 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 20 Aug after | 29.7 °C | 29 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 21 Aug after | 30.7 °C | 27 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 22 Aug after | 31.2 °C | 22 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 23 Aug after | 30.2 °C | 21 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 24 Aug after | 30.3 °C | 21 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 25 Aug after | 30.0 °C | 29 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 37.5, a minimum humidity of 22% and more than two months without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 32.
FWI at the start
37.5
Minimum humidity
22 %
Days without rain
60+
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Milengi fire, July 2023
5,479 ha
17 days
FWI 37.5
Min. humidity 22 %
Chembe fire, August 2017
3,492 ha
13 days
FWI 36.9
Min. humidity 21 %
17 km away, in 2017
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Milengi fire, August 2022
15,974 ha
26 days
FWI 39.7
Min. humidity 22 %
34 km away, in 2022
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Mansa fire, July 2019
5,146 ha
13 days
FWI 37.4
Min. humidity 24 %
26 km away, in 2019
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Mansa fire, August 2020
3,476 ha
9 days
FWI 37.8
Min. humidity 20 %
27 km away, in 2020
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Chembe fire, August 2018
4,297 ha
10 days
FWI 40.3
Min. humidity 22 %
38 km away, in 2018
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.8 mm on 9 Sept.
What happened to them
- 17 days
- median duration
- 5,528 ha
- median area
- 28 %
- went past 10,000 ha
- 2.4 mm
- rain at the end (median; 4 of 32 had it)
It burned an area similar to its twins (5,479 ha against a median of 5,528 ha) and lasted 17 days, against 17 days.
In 28 of 32, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.4 mm.
This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it
How it ended
—first rain
—no rain in ten days
55km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 15 Aug, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 4 of 32, with a median of 2.4 mm.
Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)
How a twin is chosen
- Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
- Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
- Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
- Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
- They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 23 Jul 2023
After · 22 Aug 2023
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
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 30 July 2023 the air beside the fire reached 56 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 37: 2.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
PM2.5 peak56 µg/m³
Days over the guideline4 days
PM1080 µg/m³
Optical depth0.66
WHO 15
29 Jul1 Aug4 Aug7 Aug10 Aug
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 · 179Every 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
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Milengi fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 30 July 2023 to 15 August 2023 (17 days). The perimeter dates it from 31 July 2023 to 8 August 2023.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,479 hectares (54.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Chembe (5,327 ha, 2.4 %); Milengi (161 ha, 0.0 %); Mansa (22 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 29.2 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, 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.
- How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
- Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 32. Their median duration was 17 days and their median area 5,528 ha; 28 % went past 10,000 ha. In 28 of 32, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.4 mm.
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 · 3 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Name: Chembe → Milengi.
- Last day with fire: 8 August 2023 → 15 August 2023.
- Start date: 31 July 2023 → 30 July 2023.
RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version
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.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 31 July 2023 to 8 August 2023. 179 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.
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.