Mwense fire, July 2020 Mwense, Mansa
The fire started on 30 July 2020 in Mwense, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 25 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 27,543 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 45th largest in Luapula since 2016 (of 533 with a page). Number 10 in Zambia in 2020, of 229.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Mwense · 2016Mwense · 2017Mwense · 2017Mwense · 2019
- Burnt area
- 27,543ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 25days
- 30 Jul 2020 – 23 Aug 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 30 Jul
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 1,065
- in a single hotspot: 167 MW
- Danger at start
- 31
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 472MW
- 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
94% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 16,545 ha in 2016, 16,676 ha in 2017, 15,980 ha in 2018, 14,739 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 26,028 ha that had burned before.
- 12,008 ha Mwense fire, July 2016 26,027 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 7,514 ha Mwense fire, August 2017 10,432 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 6,218 ha Mwense fire, July 2017 10,973 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,853 ha Mwense fire, July 2019 10,194 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,530 ha Mwense fire, July 2018 11,110 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,934 ha Mwense fire, August 2018 6,199 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,154 ha Mwense fire, July 2019 10,066 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,576 ha Mwense fire, August 2018 3,264 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
-
Mwense where it started26,660 ha reached on 1 Aug11 %
-
1,081 ha reached on 1 Aug0.1 %
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.
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 | 26.9 °C | 33 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 31 Jul | 27.2 °C | 33 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 1 Aug | 25.9 °C | 28 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 2 Aug | 24.9 °C | 30 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 3 Aug | 26.7 °C | 30 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 4 Aug | 28.5 °C | 29 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 5 Aug | 29.1 °C | 27 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 6 Aug | 29.2 °C | 25 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 7 Aug | 28.9 °C | 25 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 8 Aug | 27.6 °C | 28 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 9 Aug | 26.8 °C | 27 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 10 Aug | 28.0 °C | 21 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 11 Aug | 28.8 °C | 18 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 12 Aug | 29.1 °C | 20 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 13 Aug | 29.6 °C | 17 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 14 Aug | 29.4 °C | 19 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 15 Aug | 28.9 °C | 24 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 16 Aug | 29.8 °C | 23 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 17 Aug | 30.9 °C | 20 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 18 Aug | 31.8 °C | 23 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 19 Aug | 32.1 °C | 20 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 20 Aug | 30.7 °C | 26 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 21 Aug | 30.1 °C | 25 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 22 Aug | 28.9 °C | 27 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 23 Aug | 28.1 °C | 32 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 24 Aug after | 27.6 °C | 33 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 25 Aug after | 30.3 °C | 33 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 26 Aug after | 31.5 °C | 28 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 27 Aug after | 30.8 °C | 27 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 28 Aug after | 31.9 °C | 29 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 29 Aug after | 32.4 °C | 24 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 30 Aug after | 33.5 °C | 25 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 31 Aug after | 33.4 °C | 22 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 1 Sept after | 32.6 °C | 22 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 2 Sept after | 30.1 °C | 23 % | 56 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
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.
Detections table · 1,065Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Mwense fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 30 July 2020 to 23 August 2020 (25 days). The perimeter dates it from 1 August 2020 to 20 August 2020.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 27,543 hectares (275.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mwense (26,660 ha, 11 %); Mansa (1,081 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 32.1 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 53 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
History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 20 August 2020 → 23 August 2020.
- Start date: 1 August 2020 → 30 July 2020.
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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 1 August 2020 to 20 August 2020. 1,065 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.
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.