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Nyimba fire, 10 June 2026 Nyimba

Out · last detection 19 Jun 2026, 12:32 UTC

The fire started on 10 June 2026 in Nyimba, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,565 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 40th largest in Eastern since 2016 (of 60 with a page). Number 422 in Zambia in 2026, of 610.

Burnt area
3,565ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
10 Jun 2026 – 18 Jun 2026
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
10 Jun
2026
Heat detections
94
in a single hotspot: 47 MW
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
421MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

19 Jun 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Jun18 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

101112131415161719

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
35km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone 54 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

10% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 360 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Nyimba where it started
    3,588 ha reached on 3 Jun
    0.3 %

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)
10 Jun 31.0 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
11 Jun 29.3 °C 34 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
12 Jun 29.2 °C 29 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
13 Jun 29.4 °C 26 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
14 Jun 29.6 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
15 Jun 28.7 °C 30 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
16 Jun 29.4 °C 33 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
17 Jun 29.5 °C 33 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
18 Jun 29.3 °C 34 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
19 Jun after 29.7 °C 29 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
20 Jun after 27.9 °C 33 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
21 Jun after 28.3 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
22 Jun after 27.2 °C 34 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
23 Jun after 28.1 °C 33 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
24 Jun after 28.9 °C 30 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
25 Jun after 29.2 °C 28 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
26 Jun after 27.0 °C 33 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
27 Jun after 27.4 °C 31 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
28 Jun after 27.8 °C 31 % 22 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 · 3 Jun 2026
After · 25 Jun 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 14 June 2026 the air beside the fire reached 19 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak19 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1019 µg/m³
Optical depth0.22
89101112131415161718192021
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 · 94Every 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 Nyimba fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 10 June 2026 and 18 June 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 3,565 hectares (35.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Nyimba (3,588 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.0 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 35 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

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.