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Mwense fire, July 2026 Mwense, Mansa

Out · last detection 2 Sept 2026, 23:33 UTC

The fire started on 30 July 2026 in Mwense, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 34 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 74,810 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 25th largest in Luapula since 2016 (of 533 with a page). Number 10 in Zambia in 2026, of 604.

Burnt area
74,810ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
34days
30 Jul 2026 – 1 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
30 Jul
2026
Heat detections
2,359
in a single hotspot: 172 MW
Danger at start
30
High · FWI index
Energy released
21.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

2 Sept 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Jul1 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

3031124567891011121314151617181920212223242526272829303112

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

31°high
47km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

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: 35,456 ha in 2016, 39,418 ha in 2017, 31,751 ha in 2018, 31,790 ha in 2019, 29,285 ha in 2020, 31,791 ha in 2021, 32,763 ha in 2022, 28,493 ha in 2023, 30,036 ha in 2024, 31,439 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 70,505 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mwense where it started
    59,641 ha reached on 30 Jul
    25 %
  2. Mansa
    14,859 ha reached on 30 Jul
    1.9 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre 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 28.1 °C 31 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
31 Jul 27.6 °C 26 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
1 Aug 25.6 °C 26 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
2 Aug 25.4 °C 32 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
3 Aug 25.8 °C 35 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
4 Aug 26.6 °C 34 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
5 Aug 27.2 °C 33 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
6 Aug 27.7 °C 37 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
7 Aug 28.3 °C 38 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
8 Aug 28.2 °C 39 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
9 Aug 28.8 °C 39 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
10 Aug 31.1 °C 31 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
11 Aug 30.8 °C 29 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
12 Aug 29.5 °C 27 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
13 Aug 27.1 °C 42 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
14 Aug 25.4 °C 43 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
15 Aug 26.2 °C 33 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
16 Aug 26.3 °C 32 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
17 Aug 27.1 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
18 Aug 28.0 °C 22 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
19 Aug 27.6 °C 24 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
20 Aug 27.9 °C 28 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
21 Aug 28.1 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
22 Aug 29.5 °C 26 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
23 Aug 29.7 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
24 Aug 30.4 °C 33 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
25 Aug 29.5 °C 37 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
26 Aug 30.8 °C 37 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
27 Aug 30.0 °C 36 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
28 Aug 28.0 °C 39 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
29 Aug 28.5 °C 37 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
30 Aug 30.7 °C 30 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
31 Aug 31.4 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
1 Sept 31.2 °C 30 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
2 Sept after 30.3 °C 33 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
3 Sept after 31.4 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
4 Sept after 31.5 °C 33 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
5 Sept after 30.0 °C 38 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
6 Sept after 30.7 °C 36 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
7 Sept after 30.9 °C 34 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
8 Sept after 29.1 °C 32 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
9 Sept after 28.2 °C 38 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
10 Sept after 29.3 °C 36 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
11 Sept after 30.7 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 34

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Jul 2026
After · 8 Sept 2026

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 4 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 134 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 86: 5.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak134 µg/m³
Days over the guideline39 days
PM10136 µg/m³
Optical depth1.44
28293031123456789101112131415161718192021222324252627282930311234
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 · 2,359Every 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Zambia ›

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 2026 to 1 September 2026 (34 days). The perimeter dates it from 31 July 2026 to 25 August 2026.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 74,810 hectares (748.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mwense (59,641 ha, 25 %); Mansa (14,859 ha, 1.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.4 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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

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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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.