How long did the Mpulungu fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 27 September 2025 and 9 October 2025: 13 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 9,161 hectares (91.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 3 municipalities: Mpulungu (3,567 ha, 0.4 %); Lunte (3,203 ha, 0.4 %); Senga Hill (2,456 ha, 0.5 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 33.1 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, 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 · 2025-09-27 → 2025-10-09

Mpulungu fire, September 2025 Mpulungu, Lunte, Senga Hill

Out · last detection 10 Oct 2025, 11:11 UTC

The fire started on 27 September 2025 in Mpulungu, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,161 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 94th largest in Northern since 2016 (of 628 with a page). Number 50 in Zambia in 2025, of 271.

Burnt area: 9,161ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 13days; 27 Sept 2025 – 9 Oct 2025
Municipalities hit: 3; districts
Started on: 27 Sept; 2025
Heat detections: 242; in a single hotspot: 57 MW
Danger at start: 43; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 2.1GW; sum of detected power

Play back 10 Oct 2025

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Sept9 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

272829302345678910

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

The weather it burned in

33°high

46km/h · peak gust

18%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

88% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,260 ha in 2016, 4,125 ha in 2017, 1,702 ha in 2018, 1,114 ha in 2019, 4,441 ha in 2020, 2,300 ha in 2021, 3,257 ha in 2022, 2,932 ha in 2023, 2,054 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 8,018 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Mpulungu where it started

3,567 ha reached on 25 Sept

0.4 %
Lunte

3,203 ha reached on 27 Sept

0.4 %
Senga Hill

2,456 ha reached on 27 Sept

0.5 %

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)
27 Sept	30.6 °C	22 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
28 Sept	31.1 °C	24 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
29 Sept	33.1 °C	18 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
30 Sept	31.8 °C	23 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
1 Oct	28.7 °C	39 %	46 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 40
2 Oct	28.1 °C	38 %	42 km/h	0.5 mm	High 36
3 Oct	30.4 °C	20 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
4 Oct	28.2 °C	19 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
5 Oct	28.7 °C	23 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
6 Oct	29.5 °C	25 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
7 Oct	29.1 °C	27 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
8 Oct	29.6 °C	28 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
9 Oct	29.9 °C	26 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
10 Oct after	29.8 °C	29 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
11 Oct after	31.3 °C	23 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
12 Oct after	31.6 °C	25 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
13 Oct after	31.3 °C	23 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
14 Oct after	30.6 °C	20 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
15 Oct after	30.8 °C	24 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
16 Oct after	31.7 °C	22 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
17 Oct after	30.8 °C	24 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
18 Oct after	30.6 °C	23 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
19 Oct after	31.0 °C	19 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 20 Sept 2025

After · 16 Oct 2025

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 29 September 2025 the air beside the fire reached 153 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 64: 4.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak153 µg/m³

Days over the guideline15 days

PM10156 µg/m³

Optical depth1.01

WHO 15

252627282930123456789101112

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 · 242Every 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 Mpulungu fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 27 September 2025 and 9 October 2025: 13 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 9,161 hectares (91.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 3 municipalities: Mpulungu (3,567 ha, 0.4 %); Lunte (3,203 ha, 0.4 %); Senga Hill (2,456 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 33.1 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, 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 ↗

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