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Nakonde fire, June 2026 Nakonde

Out · last detection 8 Jul 2026, 11:38 UTC

The fire started on 30 June 2026 in Nakonde, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,320 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 425th largest in Muchinga since 2016 (of 513 with a page). Number 481 in Zambia in 2026, of 604.

Burnt area
3,320ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
30 Jun 2026 – 8 Jul 2026
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
30 Jun
2026
Heat detections
49
in a single hotspot: 53 MW
Danger at start
34
High · FWI index
Energy released
873MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

8 Jul 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Jun8 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

3012678

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
40km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

27% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 881 ha in 2023.

What happened to each town

  1. Nakonde where it started
    3,342 ha reached on 30 Jun
    0.7 %

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 Jun 27.8 °C 35 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
1 Jul 28.5 °C 30 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
2 Jul 28.9 °C 24 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
3 Jul 27.8 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
4 Jul 27.2 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
5 Jul 26.2 °C 39 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
6 Jul 25.4 °C 35 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
7 Jul 26.5 °C 37 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
8 Jul 26.9 °C 36 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
9 Jul after 26.0 °C 42 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
10 Jul after 28.2 °C 36 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
11 Jul after 28.6 °C 35 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
12 Jul after 28.5 °C 36 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
13 Jul after 28.3 °C 35 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
14 Jul after 27.4 °C 37 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
15 Jul after 26.3 °C 37 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
16 Jul after 25.5 °C 34 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
17 Jul after 25.7 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
18 Jul after 26.2 °C 33 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Jun 2026
After · 15 Jul 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 3 July 2026 the air beside the fire reached 56 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 32: 2.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak56 µg/m³
Days over the guideline6 days
PM1056 µg/m³
Optical depth0.73
2829301234567891011
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 · 49Every 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 Nakonde fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 30 June 2026 and 8 July 2026: 9 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 3,320 hectares (33.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Nakonde (3,342 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 28.9 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 40 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.