How long did the Mwinilunga fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 19 July 2026 and 24 August 2026: 37 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 13,928 hectares (139.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mwinilunga (9,777 ha, 0.5 %); Kalumbila (4,245 ha, 0.3 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 32.8 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, 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 · 2026-07-19 → 2026-08-24

Mwinilunga fire, 19 July 2026 Mwinilunga, Kalumbila

Out · last detection 24 Aug 2026, 11:55 UTC

The fire started on 19 July 2026 in Mwinilunga, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 37 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 13,928 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 13th largest in North-Western since 2016 (of 286 with a page). Number 62 in Zambia in 2026, of 610.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Kalumbila · 2018 Kalumbila · 2026

Burnt area: 13,928ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 37days; 19 Jul 2026 – 24 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit: 2; districts
Started on: 19 Jul; 2026
Heat detections: 417; in a single hotspot: 83 MW
Danger at start: 38; Very high · FWI index
Average daily power: 136MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Jul24 Aug

Play back 24 Aug 2026

How it evolved, day by day

19 Jul 25 Jul 30 Jul 31 Jul 6 Aug 11 Aug 17 Aug 23 Aug

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

The weather it burned in

33°high

45km/h · peak gust

15%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.1 mm on 5 Sept.

This area had burned before

56% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,172 ha in 2016, 2,226 ha in 2017, 3,180 ha in 2018, 2,814 ha in 2019, 1,520 ha in 2020, 237 ha in 2022, 3,139 ha in 2023, 173 ha in 2024, 1,286 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,735 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 8.8% of the area of London (139 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

Mwinilunga where it started

9,777 ha reached on 17 Jul

0.5 %
Kalumbila

4,245 ha reached on 17 Jul

0.3 %

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 area18 ha

Residents≈ 1,300

Inside the perimeter there were about 18 hectares of built-up land and about 1,300 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)
17 Jul	25.5 °C	20 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
18 Jul	26.0 °C	26 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
19 Jul	27.3 °C	23 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
20 Jul	28.3 °C	22 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
21 Jul	28.7 °C	20 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
22 Jul	29.4 °C	22 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
23 Jul	28.8 °C	29 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
24 Jul	28.0 °C	31 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
25 Jul	27.8 °C	30 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
26 Jul	26.9 °C	27 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
27 Jul	26.5 °C	31 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
28 Jul	27.6 °C	23 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
29 Jul	28.7 °C	26 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
30 Jul	28.5 °C	27 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
31 Jul	28.3 °C	21 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
1 Aug	27.2 °C	17 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
2 Aug	26.2 °C	26 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
3 Aug	26.8 °C	26 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
4 Aug	27.7 °C	22 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
5 Aug	28.0 °C	23 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
6 Aug	28.0 °C	24 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
7 Aug	28.9 °C	23 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
8 Aug	28.5 °C	27 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
9 Aug	29.4 °C	30 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
10 Aug	30.7 °C	27 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
11 Aug	29.6 °C	31 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
12 Aug	30.4 °C	25 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
13 Aug	27.8 °C	34 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
14 Aug	28.2 °C	31 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
15 Aug	26.8 °C	27 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
16 Aug	27.0 °C	23 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
17 Aug	27.9 °C	18 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
18 Aug	29.1 °C	15 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
19 Aug	29.0 °C	16 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
20 Aug	29.0 °C	18 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
21 Aug	29.4 °C	18 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
22 Aug	30.5 °C	19 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
23 Aug	30.4 °C	20 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
24 Aug	30.6 °C	24 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
25 Aug after	31.3 °C	24 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
26 Aug after	31.6 °C	23 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
27 Aug after	31.4 °C	22 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
28 Aug after	30.3 °C	21 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
29 Aug after	30.9 °C	20 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
30 Aug after	32.3 °C	18 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
31 Aug after	32.8 °C	15 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
1 Sept after	32.9 °C	17 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
2 Sept after	31.8 °C	21 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
3 Sept after	32.9 °C	14 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
4 Sept after	31.7 °C	30 %	40 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 42
5 Sept after	25.7 °C	55 %	37 km/h	3.1 mm	Low 6

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 12 Jul 2026

After · 31 Aug 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 21 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 107 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 64: 4.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak107 µg/m³

Days over the guideline50 days

PM10112 µg/m³

Optical depth1.34

WHO 15

151617181920212223242526272829303112345678910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031123

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 · 417Every 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 Mwinilunga fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 19 July 2026 and 24 August 2026: 37 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 13,928 hectares (139.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mwinilunga (9,777 ha, 0.5 %); Kalumbila (4,245 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 32.8 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, 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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What really happened?

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How we know this

Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 417 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