How long did the Mushindano fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 30 July 2026 to 10 September 2026 (43 days). The perimeter dates it from 4 August 2026 to 3 September 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 12,883 hectares (128.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Mushindano (12,976 ha, 1.2 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 32.5 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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 · 2026-07-30 → 2026-09-10

Mushindano fire, 30 July 2026 Mushindano

Out · last detection 10 Sept 2026, 11:38 UTC

The fire started on 30 July 2026 in Mushindano, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 43 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,883 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 15th largest in North-Western since 2016 (of 287 with a page). Number 69 in Zambia in 2026, of 617.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Mushindano · 2020 Mushindano · 2016 Mushindano · 2018 Mushindano · 2026

Burnt area: 12,883ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 43days; 30 Jul 2026 – 10 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 30 Jul; 2026
Heat detections: 565; in a single hotspot: 117 MW
Danger at start: 35; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 161MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Jul10 Sept

Play back 10 Sept 2026

How it evolved, day by day

30 Jul 7 Aug 14 Aug 19 Aug 20 Aug 26 Aug 1 Sept 9 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

46km/h · peak gust

13%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

65% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 971 ha in 2016, 3,031 ha in 2017, 1,103 ha in 2018, 2,053 ha in 2019, 3,570 ha in 2020, 2,710 ha in 2022, 3,275 ha in 2023, 3,614 ha in 2024, 3,627 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 8,341 ha that had burned before.

1,592 ha Mushindano fire, August 2020 4,795 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 8.1% of the area of London (129 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

Mushindano where it started

12,976 ha reached on 30 Jul

1.2 %

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 2025

Built-up area0.65 ha

Residents≈ 80

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.65 hectares of built-up land and about 80 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)

Day	High	Min. humidity	Peak gust	Rain	Danger (FWI)
30 Jul	28.2 °C	23 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
31 Jul	27.5 °C	16 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
1 Aug	25.9 °C	16 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
2 Aug	25.2 °C	24 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
3 Aug	26.1 °C	24 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
4 Aug	27.1 °C	22 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
5 Aug	27.3 °C	23 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
6 Aug	27.4 °C	23 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
7 Aug	28.6 °C	21 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
8 Aug	27.9 °C	28 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
9 Aug	29.1 °C	29 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
10 Aug	28.9 °C	32 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
11 Aug	29.5 °C	27 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
12 Aug	29.5 °C	25 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
13 Aug	26.3 °C	38 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
14 Aug	24.8 °C	40 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
15 Aug	25.4 °C	28 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
16 Aug	26.2 °C	21 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
17 Aug	27.3 °C	14 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
18 Aug	28.6 °C	14 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
19 Aug	28.4 °C	13 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
20 Aug	28.4 °C	18 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
21 Aug	28.9 °C	18 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
22 Aug	29.7 °C	22 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
23 Aug	30.3 °C	19 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
24 Aug	30.5 °C	21 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
25 Aug	31.0 °C	20 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
26 Aug	31.3 °C	21 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
27 Aug	29.8 °C	26 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
28 Aug	28.9 °C	24 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
29 Aug	29.4 °C	24 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
30 Aug	31.5 °C	16 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
31 Aug	31.8 °C	13 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
1 Sept	32.5 °C	14 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
2 Sept	31.5 °C	20 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
3 Sept	31.7 °C	20 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
4 Sept	30.6 °C	30 %	31 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 39
5 Sept	27.9 °C	36 %	25 km/h	0.5 mm	High 33
6 Sept	30.9 °C	29 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
7 Sept	31.0 °C	28 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
8 Sept	29.4 °C	26 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
9 Sept	27.8 °C	30 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
10 Sept	29.1 °C	28 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
11 Sept after	30.8 °C	22 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
12 Sept after	30.9 °C	24 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
13 Sept after	32.7 °C	20 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
14 Sept after	32.8 °C	20 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
15 Sept after	33.9 °C	15 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
16 Sept after	32.9 °C	12 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 50
17 Sept after	32.5 °C	11 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
18 Sept after	32.6 °C	16 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
19 Sept after	32.6 °C	18 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
20 Sept after	31.1 °C	29 %	42 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 · 23 Jul 2026

After · 17 Sept 2026

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 20 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 186 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 79: 5.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak186 µg/m³

Days over the guideline47 days

PM10189 µg/m³

Optical depth2.36

WHO 15

282930311234567891011121314151617181920212223242526272829303112345678910111213

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 · 565Every 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 Mushindano fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 30 July 2026 to 10 September 2026 (43 days). The perimeter dates it from 4 August 2026 to 3 September 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 12,883 hectares (128.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Mushindano (12,976 ha, 1.2 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 32.5 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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 ↗

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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 4 August 2026 to 3 September 2026. 565 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.

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.

Where it burned