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Mpulungu fire, 3 August 2025 Mpulungu

Out · last detection 9 Aug 2025, 12:12 UTC

The fire started on 3 August 2025 in Mpulungu, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,360 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 513th largest in Northern since 2016 (of 628 with a page). Number 217 in Zambia in 2025, of 271.

Burnt area
3,360ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
3 Aug 2025 – 9 Aug 2025
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
3 Aug
2025
Heat detections
125
in a single hotspot: 78 MW
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

9 Aug 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Aug9 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

3456789

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

The weather it burned in

28°high
51km/h · peak gust
26%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

94% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,764 ha in 2016, 820 ha in 2017, 1,911 ha in 2018, 413 ha in 2019, 77 ha in 2020, 679 ha in 2021, 679 ha in 2022, 587 ha in 2023, 72 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,148 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mpulungu where it started
    3,381 ha reached on 1 Aug
    0.3 %

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)
3 Aug 24.1 °C 28 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
4 Aug 24.9 °C 29 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
5 Aug 26.5 °C 26 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
6 Aug 27.7 °C 30 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
7 Aug 27.3 °C 29 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
8 Aug 27.6 °C 28 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
9 Aug 26.7 °C 32 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
10 Aug after 27.0 °C 31 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
11 Aug after 27.3 °C 28 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
12 Aug after 26.6 °C 27 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
13 Aug after 26.6 °C 30 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
14 Aug after 27.8 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
15 Aug after 28.0 °C 29 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
16 Aug after 27.7 °C 31 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
17 Aug after 28.2 °C 21 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
18 Aug after 27.4 °C 22 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
19 Aug after 27.0 °C 22 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 27 Jul 2025
After · 16 Aug 2025

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 7 August 2025 the air beside the fire reached 72 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 44: 3.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak72 µg/m³
Days over the guideline8 days
PM1073 µg/m³
Optical depth0.85
123456789101112
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 · 125Every 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Zambia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Mpulungu fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 August 2025 and 9 August 2025: 7 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 3,360 hectares (33.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mpulungu (3,381 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 27.7 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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

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.