How long did the Mwinilunga fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 14 August 2026 to 29 August 2026 (16 days). The perimeter dates it from 14 August 2026 to 26 August 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,858 hectares (38.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Mwinilunga (3,884 ha, 0.2 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 31.4 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, class Extreme.

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 · 2026-08-14 → 2026-08-29

Mwinilunga fire, 14 August 2026 Mwinilunga

Out · last detection 29 Aug 2026, 23:09 UTC

The fire started on 14 August 2026 in Mwinilunga, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,858 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 156th largest in North-Western since 2016 (of 286 with a page). Number 360 in Zambia in 2026, of 604.

Burnt area: 3,858ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 16days; 14 Aug 2026 – 29 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 14 Aug; 2026
Heat detections: 69; in a single hotspot: 43 MW
Danger at start: 37; High · FWI index
Energy released: 734MW; sum of detected power

Play back 29 Aug 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Aug29 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

14151617192021222324252829

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

50km/h · peak gust

14%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.4 mm on 4 Sept.

This area had burned before

73% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 111 ha in 2017, 1,126 ha in 2019, 1,546 ha in 2020, 916 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,827 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Mwinilunga where it started

3,884 ha reached on 14 Aug

0.2 %

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)
14 Aug	28.1 °C	29 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
15 Aug	26.6 °C	25 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
16 Aug	26.8 °C	22 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
17 Aug	27.5 °C	17 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
18 Aug	28.7 °C	14 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
19 Aug	28.9 °C	14 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
20 Aug	28.8 °C	16 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
21 Aug	29.7 °C	16 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
22 Aug	30.4 °C	17 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
23 Aug	30.4 °C	17 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
24 Aug	30.5 °C	21 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
25 Aug	31.4 °C	19 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
26 Aug	31.0 °C	21 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
27 Aug	31.3 °C	20 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
28 Aug	30.7 °C	16 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
29 Aug	31.0 °C	17 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
30 Aug after	32.3 °C	16 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
31 Aug after	33.1 °C	11 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
1 Sept after	33.0 °C	13 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
2 Sept after	31.5 °C	17 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
3 Sept after	33.3 °C	13 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
4 Sept after	31.0 °C	32 %	45 km/h	1.4 mm	High 28

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 7 Aug 2026

After · 5 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 21 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 97 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 65: 4.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak97 µg/m³

Days over the guideline21 days

PM10101 µg/m³

Optical depth1.36

WHO 15

12131415161718192021222324252627282930311

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 · 69Every 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?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 14 August 2026 to 29 August 2026 (16 days). The perimeter dates it from 14 August 2026 to 26 August 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,858 hectares (38.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Mwinilunga (3,884 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 31.4 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, class Extreme.
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 ↗

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.

Where it burned