Mpika fire, 10 September 2025 Mpika, Shiwang'Andu
The fire started on 10 September 2025 in Mpika, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 35 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 20,880 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 35th largest in Muchinga since 2016 (of 518 with a page). Number 19 in Zambia in 2025, of 271.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Mpika · 2017Mpika · 2018Mpika · 2023Mpika · 2020
- Burnt area
- 20,880ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 35days
- 10 Sept 2025 – 14 Oct 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 10 Sept
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 1,188
- in a single hotspot: 104 MW
- Danger at start
- 30
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 371MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 42 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
83% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 6,979 ha in 2016, 8,370 ha in 2017, 8,718 ha in 2018, 4,801 ha in 2019, 8,495 ha in 2020, 4,487 ha in 2021, 4,618 ha in 2022, 8,298 ha in 2023, 2,181 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 17,305 ha that had burned before.
- 6,166 ha Mpika fire, October 2017 17,050 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,292 ha Mpika fire, September 2018 9,089 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,323 ha Mpika fire, September 2023 8,366 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,011 ha Mpika fire, September 2020 18,056 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,624 ha Shiwang'Andu fire, September 2016 5,821 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,228 ha Mpika fire, October 2016 3,313 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 839 ha Shiwang'Andu fire, September 2022 3,338 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 439 ha Mpika fire, September 2023 4,740 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
-
Mpika where it started18,365 ha reached on 11 Sept1.1 %
-
2,622 ha reached on 12 Sept0.3 %
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.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 10 hectares of built-up land and about 800 residents (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 Sept | 28.3 °C | 34 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 11 Sept | 28.8 °C | 30 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 12 Sept | 27.9 °C | 27 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 13 Sept | 28.1 °C | 27 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 14 Sept | 29.1 °C | 29 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 15 Sept | 29.6 °C | 23 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 16 Sept | 30.6 °C | 17 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 17 Sept | 31.5 °C | 14 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 18 Sept | 28.6 °C | 29 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 19 Sept | 29.0 °C | 37 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 20 Sept | 27.4 °C | 36 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 21 Sept | 26.4 °C | 38 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 22 Sept | 28.8 °C | 31 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 23 Sept | 29.5 °C | 27 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 24 Sept | 29.4 °C | 29 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 25 Sept | 29.1 °C | 27 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 26 Sept | 28.4 °C | 34 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 27 Sept | 28.7 °C | 29 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 28 Sept | 32.3 °C | 22 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 29 Sept | 33.3 °C | 20 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 30 Sept | 31.1 °C | 31 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 1 Oct | 25.2 °C | 55 % | 46 km/h | 1.9 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 2 Oct | 27.3 °C | 36 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 3 Oct | 27.4 °C | 21 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 4 Oct | 25.2 °C | 25 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 5 Oct | 26.0 °C | 35 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 6 Oct | 28.6 °C | 27 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 7 Oct | 29.8 °C | 22 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 8 Oct | 29.9 °C | 27 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 9 Oct | 29.4 °C | 31 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 10 Oct | 29.7 °C | 31 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 11 Oct | 30.8 °C | 27 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 12 Oct | 31.8 °C | 23 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 13 Oct | 31.6 °C | 24 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 14 Oct | 29.6 °C | 27 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 15 Oct after | 29.8 °C | 27 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 16 Oct after | 31.6 °C | 20 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 17 Oct after | 31.4 °C | 21 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 18 Oct after | 29.8 °C | 26 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 19 Oct after | 29.7 °C | 24 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 20 Oct after | 29.2 °C | 27 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 21 Oct after | 29.8 °C | 29 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 22 Oct after | 29.5 °C | 34 % | 40 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 37 |
| 23 Oct after | 29.1 °C | 34 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 24 Oct after | 30.7 °C | 31 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 29 September 2025 the air beside the fire reached 48 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 32: 2.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 1,188Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Mpika fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 10 September 2025 to 14 October 2025 (35 days). The perimeter dates it from 16 September 2025 to 7 October 2025.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 20,880 hectares (208.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mpika (18,365 ha, 1.1 %); Shiwang'Andu (2,622 ha, 0.3 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 33.3 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 50 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
History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 7 October 2025 → 14 October 2025.
- Start date: 16 September 2025 → 10 September 2025.
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; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 16 September 2025 to 7 October 2025. 1,188 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.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.