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Ngabwe fire, 15 August 2026 Ngabwe

Out · last detection 19 Aug 2026, 11:49 UTC

The fire started on 15 August 2026 in Ngabwe, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,833 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 263th largest in Central since 2016 (of 401 with a page). Number 369 in Zambia in 2026, of 610.

Burnt area
3,833ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
15 Aug 2026 – 19 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
15 Aug
2026
Heat detections
79
in a single hotspot: 48 MW
Danger at start
38
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
623MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

19 Aug 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Aug19 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

16171819

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

The weather it burned in

30°high
48km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

48% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 908 ha in 2016, 360 ha in 2017, 336 ha in 2018, 342 ha in 2019, 1,070 ha in 2022, 227 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,847 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Ngabwe where it started
    3,854 ha reached on 8 Aug
    0.5 %

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)
8 Aug 26.9 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
9 Aug 28.4 °C 31 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
10 Aug 29.0 °C 30 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
11 Aug 28.0 °C 34 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
12 Aug 27.6 °C 36 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
13 Aug 24.2 °C 42 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
14 Aug 21.3 °C 48 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
15 Aug 25.1 °C 28 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
16 Aug 24.8 °C 23 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
17 Aug 26.4 °C 17 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
18 Aug 27.8 °C 19 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
19 Aug 27.6 °C 20 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
20 Aug after 27.6 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
21 Aug after 28.2 °C 22 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
22 Aug after 29.3 °C 24 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
23 Aug after 30.0 °C 21 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
24 Aug after 29.8 °C 24 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
25 Aug after 29.6 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
26 Aug after 30.9 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
27 Aug after 29.0 °C 28 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
28 Aug after 27.0 °C 29 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
29 Aug after 28.9 °C 25 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
30 Aug after 31.0 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
31 Aug after 31.9 °C 17 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
1 Sept after 32.1 °C 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
2 Sept after 31.1 °C 22 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
3 Sept after 32.0 °C 19 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
4 Sept after 32.9 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 8 Aug 2026
After · 26 Aug 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 10 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 48 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 37: 2.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak48 µg/m³
Days over the guideline18 days
PM1051 µg/m³
Optical depth1.05
678910111213141516171819202122232425262728
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 · 79Every 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 Ngabwe fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 15 August 2026 and 19 August 2026: 5 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 3,833 hectares (38.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Ngabwe (3,854 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.0 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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.