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Mufumbwe fire, 2 August 2022 Mufumbwe, Mumbwa, Nkeyema

Out · last measured on 7 Aug 2022

The fire started on 2 August 2022 in Mufumbwe, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,506 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 107th largest in North-Western since 2016 (of 286 with a page). Number 120 in Zambia in 2022, of 235.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Mufumbwe · 2022Mufumbwe · 2026Mufumbwe · 2025Mumbwa · 2025

We have the GWIS perimeter for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by municipality is there.

Burnt area
4,506ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
2 Aug 2022 – 7 Aug 2022
Municipalities hit
3
districts
Started on
2 Aug
2022
Danger at start
38
High · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

27°high
45km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

21% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 619 ha in 2016, 608 ha in 2018, 126 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 924 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 2.8% of the area of London (45 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Mufumbwe where it started
    2,398 ha
    0.1 %
  2. Mumbwa
    2,047 ha
    0.1 %
  3. Nkeyema
    92 ha
    0.0 %

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.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, 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.

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)
2 Aug 25.9 °C 33 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
3 Aug 25.8 °C 31 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
4 Aug 26.2 °C 32 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
5 Aug 27.3 °C 29 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
6 Aug 27.0 °C 24 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
7 Aug 27.1 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
8 Aug after 27.6 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
9 Aug after 27.4 °C 24 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
10 Aug after 28.0 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
11 Aug after 27.4 °C 25 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
12 Aug after 27.0 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
13 Aug after 27.6 °C 24 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
14 Aug after 29.4 °C 22 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
15 Aug after 30.3 °C 20 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
16 Aug after 29.9 °C 23 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
17 Aug after 28.3 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 Jul 2022
After · 14 Aug 2022

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Other fires nearby

All fires in Zambia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Mufumbwe fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 2 August 2022 and 7 August 2022: 6 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 4,506 hectares (45.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Mufumbwe (2,398 ha, 0.1 %); Mumbwa (2,047 ha, 0.1 %); Nkeyema (92 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 27.3 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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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How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. No 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 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.