How long did the Mpika fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 1 September 2026 to 17 September 2026 (17 days). The perimeter dates it from 1 September 2026 to 11 September 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 4,315 hectares (43.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Mpika (4,336 ha, 0.2 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 29.5 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, class 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 · 2026-09-01 → 2026-09-17

Mpika fire, 1 September 2026 Mpika

Out · last detection 17 Sept 2026, 11:06 UTC

The fire started on 1 September 2026 in Mpika, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,315 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 296th largest in Muchinga since 2016 (of 513 with a page). Number 299 in Zambia in 2026, of 604.

Burnt area: 4,315ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 17days; 1 Sept 2026 – 17 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 1 Sept; 2026
Heat detections: 105; in a single hotspot: 53 MW
Danger at start: 30; High · FWI index
Energy released: 736MW; sum of detected power

Play back 17 Sept 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Sept17 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

1234567810111214151617

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

55km/h · peak gust

30%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 22 Sept.

This area had burned before

66% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 209 ha in 2016, 1,330 ha in 2017, 1,390 ha in 2018, 1,211 ha in 2020, 1,623 ha in 2021, 33 ha in 2022, 1,212 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,832 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Mpika where it started

4,336 ha reached on 1 Sept

0.2 %

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)
1 Sept	26.9 °C	39 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
2 Sept	26.3 °C	38 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
3 Sept	27.3 °C	38 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
4 Sept	29.5 °C	31 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
5 Sept	28.2 °C	39 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
6 Sept	26.6 °C	42 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
7 Sept	25.8 °C	44 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
8 Sept	23.7 °C	42 %	55 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
9 Sept	21.6 °C	52 %	53 km/h	0.2 mm	High 29
10 Sept	24.7 °C	44 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
11 Sept	26.6 °C	40 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
12 Sept	27.4 °C	34 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
13 Sept	27.1 °C	36 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
14 Sept	27.6 °C	36 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
15 Sept	27.7 °C	36 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
16 Sept	27.2 °C	30 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
17 Sept	27.0 °C	32 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
18 Sept after	27.1 °C	37 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
19 Sept after	27.2 °C	38 %	42 km/h	0.1 mm	High 34
20 Sept after	27.1 °C	41 %	43 km/h	0.3 mm	High 34
21 Sept after	27.6 °C	41 %	41 km/h	0.2 mm	High 33
22 Sept after	22.5 °C	60 %	45 km/h	1.0 mm	Moderate 16

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 25 Aug 2026

After · 24 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 4 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 112 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 51: 3.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak112 µg/m³

Days over the guideline18 days

PM10116 µg/m³

Optical depth1.34

WHO 15

30311234567891011121314151617181920

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 · 105Every 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 Mpika fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 1 September 2026 to 17 September 2026 (17 days). The perimeter dates it from 1 September 2026 to 11 September 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 4,315 hectares (43.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Mpika (4,336 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 29.5 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, class 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 ↗

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