Burned area
satellite only4,191ha
Perimeter published by GWIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 5 Sept 2023 – 16 Sept 2023
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
ZM · Zambia · –
Mungwi fire, 5 September 2023 Mungwi
Out · last detection 16 Sept 2023, 12:05 UTC
The fire started on 5 September 2023 in Mungwi, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,191 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 251th largest in Northern since 2016 (of 443 with a page). Number 86 in Zambia in 2023, of 165.
Use this data
Compare with…
Suggestions: Mungwi · 2016Mungwi · 2024Mungwi · 2019Mungwi · 2020
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-10-26matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only12days
5 Sept 2023 to 16 Sept 2023: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 16 Sept 2023, 12:05 UTC
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only5 Sept 2023
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 5 Sept 2023
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only140
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 181 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 5 Sept 2023 – 16 Sept 2023
+− cross-check
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
The worst day
satellite only1,976MW
Total radiative power on 6 September 2023; hotspots that day: 36.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 6 Sept 2023
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model33.2FWI · high
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 60.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 5 Sept 2023, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model32.3°C · 28% RH
High of 32.3 °C and minimum humidity of 28% on 12 September 2023; gusts of 51 km/h on 13 September 2023.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 5 Sept 2023 – 16 Sept 2023
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
Living inside
model≈ 200people
Estimated residents inside the perimeter and 1.7 ha of built-up area (100 m grid, epoch 2025).
- Source
- GHSL R2023A · JRC
- Date
- calculated on 24 October 2026
+− cross-check
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.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
logLast day with fire: 9 September 2023 → 16 September 2023.
-
· reconstructed GHSLPopulation and built-up area computed
What was saved on 26 October 2026
Every night a snapshot of what the page shows is saved. If anything changes, it appears in the list as a log entry.
- Area
- 4,191 ha
- Dates
- 5 Sept 2023 – 16 Sept 2023
- Name
- Mungwi
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/mungwi-2023-09-3?v=2026-10-26A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire mungwi-2023-09-3.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-09-05 | 1 | 10 | 29.8 | 15.6 | 27 | 11.6 | 29.5 | 0 | 33.2 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-09-06 | 36 | 1,976 | 31.5 | 14.3 | 26 | 12.5 | 23.8 | 0 | 34.3 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-09-07 | 21 | 378 | 31.6 | 18.5 | 27 | 12.1 | 27.4 | 0 | 34.3 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-09-08 | 40 | 672 | 30.5 | 16.8 | 23 | 15 | 33.8 | 0 | 37.1 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-09-09 | 9 | 260 | 30.2 | 14.6 | 20 | 14 | 34.6 | 0 | 38 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-09-10 | 11 | 113 | 29.7 | 15.3 | 25 | 12.1 | 28.8 | 0 | 36.6 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-09-11 | 10 | 118 | 31.4 | 17.2 | 27 | 7.4 | 21.2 | 0 | 32.9 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-09-12 | 1 | 8 | 32.3 | 19.3 | 28 | 13.4 | 26.6 | 0 | 38.3 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2023-09-13 | 2 | 18 | 29.3 | 18.2 | 30 | 21.9 | 50.8 | 0 | 44.7 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2023-09-14 | 1 | 86 | 27.5 | 16.4 | 34 | 17.5 | 39.6 | 0 | 37 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-09-15 | 7 | 47 | 30.1 | 15.6 | 26 | 14.8 | 36.4 | 0 | 35.3 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-09-16 | 1 | 9 | 31.5 | 15.1 | 23 | 12.5 | 28.1 | 0 | 35.9 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-09-17 | 0 | 0 | 32.3 | 15 | 21 | 14.3 | 30.2 | 0 | 39.6 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2023-09-18 | 0 | 0 | 32.1 | 16.2 | 18 | 18.2 | 36 | 0 | 46 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2023-09-19 | 0 | 0 | 31.4 | 17.6 | 23 | 13.1 | 31.7 | 0 | 41 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2023-09-20 | 0 | 0 | 32.1 | 16.2 | 19 | 14.3 | 25.9 | 0 | 42.5 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2023-09-21 | 0 | 0 | 32.7 | 17.5 | 16 | 16.3 | 34.6 | 0 | 46.4 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2023-09-22 | 0 | 0 | 31.8 | 17.2 | 21 | 15.3 | 34.2 | 0 | 45.6 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2023-09-23 | 0 | 0 | 32.1 | 17.4 | 20 | 13.6 | 33.5 | 0 | 44.1 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2023-09-24 | 0 | 0 | 31.9 | 17.6 | 24 | 13.2 | 33.8 | 0 | 42.7 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2023-09-25 | 0 | 0 | 31.7 | 17.3 | 25 | 12.6 | 32 | 0 | 41.2 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2023-09-26 | 0 | 0 | 33 | 16.8 | 21 | 11.8 | 29.5 | 0 | 40.7 | muy_alto | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: GWIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0), GHSL (JRC). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 4,191ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 12days
- 5 Sept 2023 – 16 Sept 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 5 Sept
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 140
- in a single hotspot: 181 MW
- Danger at start
- 33
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 308MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
5 Sept16 Sept
16 Sept 2023
How it evolved, day by day
6 Sept
11 Sept
14 Sept
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
32°high
51km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
99% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,450 ha in 2016, 907 ha in 2017, 1,573 ha in 2018, 2,790 ha in 2019, 2,432 ha in 2020, 1,895 ha in 2021, 1,608 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,155 ha that had burned before.
- 2,790 ha Mungwi fire, August 2019 8,752 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,222 ha Mungwi fire, September 2020 4,499 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,867 ha Mungwi fire, September 2021 5,303 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,608 ha Mungwi fire, September 2022 8,568 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,488 ha Mungwi fire, September 2018 3,153 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 80 ha Mungwi fire, August 2016 19,230 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
-
Mungwi where it started4,217 ha reached on 5 Sept0.4 %
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 2025Built-up area1.7 ha
Residents≈ 200
Inside the perimeter there were about 1.7 hectares of built-up land and about 200 residents (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
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)
Started with 60 days without rain: 91 % of the area in Zambia
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 Sept | 29.8 °C | 27 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 6 Sept | 31.5 °C | 26 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 7 Sept | 31.6 °C | 27 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 8 Sept | 30.5 °C | 23 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 9 Sept | 30.2 °C | 20 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 10 Sept | 29.7 °C | 25 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 11 Sept | 31.4 °C | 27 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 12 Sept | 32.3 °C | 28 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 13 Sept | 29.3 °C | 30 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 14 Sept | 27.5 °C | 34 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 15 Sept | 30.1 °C | 26 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 16 Sept | 31.5 °C | 23 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 17 Sept after | 32.3 °C | 21 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 18 Sept after | 32.1 °C | 18 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 19 Sept after | 31.4 °C | 23 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 20 Sept after | 32.1 °C | 19 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 21 Sept after | 32.7 °C | 16 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 22 Sept after | 31.8 °C | 21 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 23 Sept after | 32.1 °C | 20 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 24 Sept after | 31.9 °C | 24 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 25 Sept after | 31.7 °C | 25 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 26 Sept after | 33.0 °C | 21 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 33.2, a minimum humidity of 27% and more than two months without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 46.
FWI at the start
33.2
Minimum humidity
27 %
Days without rain
60+
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Mungwi fire, 5 September 2023
4,191 ha
12 days
FWI 33.2
Min. humidity 27 %
Mungwi fire, August 2016
3,796 ha
19 days
FWI 32.5
Min. humidity 27 %
27 km away, in 2016
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Mungwi fire, September 2024
5,481 ha
19 days
FWI 31.8
Min. humidity 27 %
12 km away, in 2024
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.0 mm on 24 Sept.
Mungwi fire, September 2020
3,064 ha
6 days
FWI 33.8
Min. humidity 26 %
10 km away, in 2020
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Kasama fire, September 2022
5,510 ha
18 days
FWI 33.2
Min. humidity 27 %
120 km away, in 2022
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Mungwi fire, August 2024
10,551 ha
19 days
FWI 31.0
Min. humidity 27 %
29 km away, in 2024
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
What happened to them
- 16 days
- median duration
- 4,386 ha
- median area
- 15 %
- went past 10,000 ha
- 1.4 mm
- rain at the end (median; 11 of 46 had it)
It burned an area similar to its twins (4,191 ha against a median of 4,386 ha) and lasted 12 days, against 16 days.
In 35 of 46, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 1.4 mm.
This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it
How it ended
—first rain
—no rain in ten days
51km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 16 Sept, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 11 of 46, with a median of 1.4 mm.
Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)
How a twin is chosen
- Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
- Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
- Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
- Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
- They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 29 Aug 2023
After · 23 Sept 2023
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
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 11 September 2023 the air beside the fire reached 60 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 36: 2.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
PM2.5 peak60 µg/m³
Days over the guideline8 days
PM1087 µg/m³
Optical depth1.80
WHO 15
3 Sept5 Sept7 Sept9 Sept11 Sept
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 · 140Every 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
- 16,797 haMungwi17 August 2025 · 35 days · 2 km away
- 14,469 haMungwi19 August 2026 · 33 days · 2 km away
- 14,870 haMungwi26 August 2026 · 27 days · 15 km away
- 19,230 haMungwi20 August 2016 · 34 days · 17 km away
- 16,466 haMungwi17 August 2026 · 33 days · 23 km away
- 18,241 haMungwi10 August 2026 · 22 days · 27 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Mungwi fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 5 September 2023 to 16 September 2023 (12 days). The perimeter dates it from 5 September 2023 to 9 September 2023.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 4,191 hectares (41.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Mungwi (4,217 ha, 0.4 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 32.3 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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.
- How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
- Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 46. Their median duration was 16 days and their median area 4,386 ha; 15 % went past 10,000 ha. In 35 of 46, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 1.4 mm.
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 · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 9 September 2023 → 16 September 2023.
RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version
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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 5 September 2023 to 9 September 2023. 140 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 2025, 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.