Mufumbwe fire, 5 October 2022 Mufumbwe
The fire started on 5 October 2022 in Mufumbwe, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 25,793 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 5th largest in North-Western since 2016 (of 287 with a page). Number 7 in Zambia in 2022, of 235.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 25,793ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 15days
- 5 Oct 2022 – 19 Oct 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 5 Oct
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 834
- in a single hotspot: 106 MW
- Danger at start
- 49
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 393MW
- 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 more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
77% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 6,746 ha in 2016, 6,776 ha in 2017, 8,766 ha in 2018, 6,751 ha in 2019, 1,263 ha in 2020, 2,831 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 19,808 ha that had burned before.
- 3,548 ha Mufumbwe fire, September 2018 4,879 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,447 ha Mufumbwe fire, September 2016 5,017 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,077 ha Mufumbwe fire, September 2019 9,232 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,060 ha Mufumbwe fire, August 2019 3,695 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,832 ha Mufumbwe fire, September 2017 24,460 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,154 ha Mufumbwe fire, August 2016 4,625 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 861 ha Mufumbwe fire, September 2020 5,212 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 667 ha Mufumbwe fire, September 2021 5,114 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
-
Mufumbwe where it started26,014 ha reached on 5 Oct1.4 %
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 2020Inside 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 Oct | 35.1 °C | 17 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 6 Oct | 34.0 °C | 14 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 7 Oct | 33.8 °C | 14 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 8 Oct | 32.7 °C | 14 % | 55 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 9 Oct | 32.1 °C | 17 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 10 Oct | 32.1 °C | 22 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 11 Oct | 32.0 °C | 23 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 12 Oct | 33.4 °C | 21 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 13 Oct | 33.6 °C | 13 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 14 Oct | 33.5 °C | 15 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 15 Oct | 33.8 °C | 13 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 16 Oct | 34.1 °C | 14 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 17 Oct | 34.3 °C | 22 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 18 Oct | 33.2 °C | 19 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 19 Oct | 33.0 °C | 21 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 20 Oct after | 32.4 °C | 26 % | 44 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 47 |
| 21 Oct after | 32.8 °C | 26 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 22 Oct after | 33.2 °C | 22 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 23 Oct after | 33.4 °C | 21 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 24 Oct after | 33.5 °C | 25 % | 27 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 40 |
| 25 Oct after | 33.2 °C | 25 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 26 Oct after | 34.3 °C | 23 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 27 Oct after | 34.3 °C | 26 % | 36 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 43 |
| 28 Oct after | 34.5 °C | 22 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 29 Oct after | 34.3 °C | 21 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
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 8 October 2022 the air beside the fire reached 62 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 39: 2.6 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 · 834Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 34,546 haMufumbwe2 September 2025 · 15 days · 11 km away
- 22,416 haMufumbwe 18 October 2026 · 9 days · 11 km away
- 12,869 haMufumbwe2 September 2023 · 12 days · 11 km away
- 24,460 haMufumbwe13 September 2017 · 26 days · 15 km away
- 13,599 haKasempa20 July 2026 · 10 days · 24 km away
- 135,262 haMufumbweAugust 2025 · 33 days · 38 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Mufumbwe fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 October 2022 and 19 October 2022: 15 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 25,793 hectares (257.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Mufumbwe (26,014 ha, 1.4 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.1 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 59, class Extreme.
- 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.
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.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 834 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.
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.