How long did the Nsama fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 22 July 2026 to 26 August 2026 (36 days). The perimeter dates it from 25 July 2026 to 19 August 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 18,656 hectares (186.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Kaputa (18,715 ha, 3.7 %); Nsama (75 ha, 0.0 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 30.8 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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 · 22 Jul 2026 – 26 Aug 2026

Nsama fire, 22 July 2026 Kaputa, Nsama

Out · last detection 26 Aug 2026, 11:19 UTC

The fire started on 22 July 2026 in Nsama, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 36 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 18,656 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 25th largest in Northern since 2016 (of 628 with a page). Number 39 in Zambia in 2026, of 620.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Kaputa · 2019 Kaputa · 2025 Kaputa · 2016 Kaputa · 2020

Burnt area: 18,656ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 36days; 22 Jul 2026 – 26 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit: 2; districts
Started on: 22 Jul; 2026
Heat detections: 641; in a single hotspot: 165 MW
Danger at start: 27; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 231MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Jul26 Aug

Play back 26 Aug 2026

How it evolved, day by day

23 Jul 2 Aug 13 Aug 20 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

31°high

36km/h · peak gust

23%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

73% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,526 ha in 2016, 1,596 ha in 2017, 3,858 ha in 2018, 3,552 ha in 2019, 3,617 ha in 2020, 668 ha in 2021, 1,763 ha in 2022, 3,538 ha in 2023, 2,693 ha in 2024, 4,926 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 13,539 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 12% of the area of London (187 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

Kaputa

18,715 ha reached on 24 Jul

3.7 %
Nsama where it started

75 ha reached on 23 Jul

0.0 %

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 area6.6 ha

Residents≈ 750

Inside the perimeter there were about 6.6 hectares of built-up land and about 750 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	Danger (FWI)
22 Jul	28.6 °C	41 %	19 km/h	High 27
23 Jul	28.9 °C	44 %	22 km/h	High 25
24 Jul	28.8 °C	38 %	22 km/h	High 26
25 Jul	28.9 °C	30 %	34 km/h	High 33
26 Jul	27.5 °C	37 %	33 km/h	High 33
27 Jul	26.9 °C	38 %	23 km/h	High 30
28 Jul	28.0 °C	36 %	16 km/h	High 27
29 Jul	28.6 °C	35 %	25 km/h	High 28
30 Jul	28.5 °C	37 %	20 km/h	High 29
31 Jul	28.7 °C	29 %	25 km/h	High 30
1 Aug	27.2 °C	25 %	29 km/h	High 34
2 Aug	27.1 °C	32 %	20 km/h	High 32
3 Aug	27.6 °C	35 %	19 km/h	High 30
4 Aug	27.7 °C	40 %	23 km/h	High 29
5 Aug	28.1 °C	40 %	23 km/h	High 28
6 Aug	28.6 °C	39 %	22 km/h	High 28
7 Aug	29.0 °C	43 %	24 km/h	High 27
8 Aug	29.2 °C	41 %	26 km/h	High 28
9 Aug	29.0 °C	37 %	28 km/h	High 29
10 Aug	30.1 °C	34 %	29 km/h	High 30
11 Aug	30.1 °C	33 %	30 km/h	High 31
12 Aug	30.8 °C	23 %	29 km/h	High 37
13 Aug	29.3 °C	33 %	36 km/h	Very high 39
14 Aug	27.7 °C	40 %	33 km/h	High 35
15 Aug	27.3 °C	34 %	30 km/h	High 35
16 Aug	27.5 °C	32 %	26 km/h	High 32
17 Aug	28.5 °C	31 %	23 km/h	High 31
18 Aug	29.0 °C	29 %	20 km/h	High 30
19 Aug	28.9 °C	27 %	28 km/h	High 33
20 Aug	28.6 °C	31 %	23 km/h	High 33
21 Aug	28.7 °C	33 %	27 km/h	High 33
22 Aug	29.3 °C	32 %	22 km/h	High 33
23 Aug	29.5 °C	36 %	27 km/h	High 33
24 Aug	30.1 °C	37 %	29 km/h	High 34
25 Aug	29.8 °C	39 %	30 km/h	High 33
26 Aug	30.7 °C	35 %	30 km/h	High 33
27 Aug after	30.8 °C	35 %	36 km/h	High 36
28 Aug after	29.6 °C	35 %	38 km/h	High 38
29 Aug after	29.1 °C	37 %	34 km/h	High 37
30 Aug after	30.2 °C	32 %	36 km/h	High 37
31 Aug after	30.2 °C	35 %	40 km/h	Very high 38
1 Sept after	30.5 °C	36 %	35 km/h	High 37
2 Sept after	31.3 °C	34 %	35 km/h	High 37
3 Sept after	31.0 °C	33 %	35 km/h	High 37
4 Sept after	32.1 °C	32 %	24 km/h	High 30
5 Sept after	31.8 °C	33 %	22 km/h	High 32

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 15 Jul 2026

After · 2 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 20 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 118 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 60: 4.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak118 µg/m³

Days over the guideline39 days

PM10121 µg/m³

Optical depth1.21

WHO 15

20 Jul29 Jul7 Aug16 Aug25 Aug

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 · 641Every 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 Nsama fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 22 July 2026 to 26 August 2026 (36 days). The perimeter dates it from 25 July 2026 to 19 August 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 18,656 hectares (186.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Kaputa (18,715 ha, 3.7 %); Nsama (75 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 30.8 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

26 October 2026 Last day with fire: 19 August 2026 → 26 August 2026.
26 October 2026 Start date: 25 July 2026 → 22 July 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 do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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How we know this

Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 25 July 2026 to 19 August 2026. 641 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