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Mwinilunga fire, June 2026 Mwinilunga

Out · last detection 20 Jun 2026, 12:14 UTC

The fire started on 4 June 2026 in Mwinilunga, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,403 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 212th largest in North-Western since 2016 (of 286 with a page). Number 464 in Zambia in 2026, of 610.

Burnt area
3,403ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
16days
4 Jun 2026 – 19 Jun 2026
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
4 Jun
2026
Heat detections
96
in a single hotspot: 37 MW
Danger at start
26
High · FWI index
Energy released
823MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

20 Jun 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Jun19 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

45678910111213141516181920

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

The weather it burned in

29°high
41km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 23 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

24% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 300 ha in 2020, 162 ha in 2021, 140 ha in 2022, 450 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 815 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mwinilunga where it started
    2,716 ha reached on 1 Jun
    0.1 %

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)
4 Jun 28.5 °C 26 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
5 Jun 29.1 °C 24 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
6 Jun 29.1 °C 27 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
7 Jun 29.0 °C 27 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
8 Jun 28.1 °C 29 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
9 Jun 28.4 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
10 Jun 28.6 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
11 Jun 28.0 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
12 Jun 26.5 °C 23 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
13 Jun 26.3 °C 25 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
14 Jun 26.6 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
15 Jun 28.5 °C 23 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
16 Jun 28.9 °C 26 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
17 Jun 28.7 °C 26 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
18 Jun 28.3 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
19 Jun 27.5 °C 37 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
20 Jun after 28.0 °C 35 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
21 Jun after 27.9 °C 33 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
22 Jun after 27.0 °C 25 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
23 Jun after 26.1 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
24 Jun after 26.0 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
25 Jun after 26.8 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
26 Jun after 27.1 °C 31 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
27 Jun after 27.0 °C 29 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
28 Jun after 27.5 °C 28 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
29 Jun after 27.7 °C 27 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 33

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 May 2026
After · 26 Jun 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 6 June 2026 the air beside the fire reached 30 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 25: 1.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak30 µg/m³
Days over the guideline5 days
PM1032 µg/m³
Optical depth0.62
2345678910111213141516171819202122
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 · 96Every 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

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Mwinilunga fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 June 2026 and 19 June 2026: 16 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 3,403 hectares (34.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mwinilunga (2,716 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.1 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, class 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.