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ZM · Zambia · →

Solwezi fire, July 2025 Solwezi

Out · last detection 9 Aug 2025, 12:12 UTC

The fire started on 27 July 2025 in Solwezi, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,158 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 258th largest in North-Western since 2016 (of 286 with a page). Number 246 in Zambia in 2025, of 271.

Burnt area
3,158ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
14days
27 Jul 2025 – 9 Aug 2025
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
27 Jul
2025
Heat detections
96
in a single hotspot: 106 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Energy released
712MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

9 Aug 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Jul9 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

2829302345789

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

The weather it burned in

28°high
52km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

86% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 658 ha in 2016, 107 ha in 2017, 707 ha in 2018, 1,841 ha in 2020, 309 ha in 2021, 475 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,701 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Solwezi where it started
    3,175 ha reached on 20 Jul
    0.9 %

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)
27 Jul 24.6 °C 29 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
28 Jul 22.9 °C 29 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
29 Jul 21.6 °C 40 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
30 Jul 22.8 °C 28 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
31 Jul 23.2 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
1 Aug 24.7 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
2 Aug 24.1 °C 21 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
3 Aug 23.1 °C 25 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
4 Aug 23.2 °C 26 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
5 Aug 25.6 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
6 Aug 27.8 °C 22 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
7 Aug 27.7 °C 20 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
8 Aug 27.4 °C 20 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
9 Aug 27.2 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
10 Aug after 27.6 °C 18 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
11 Aug after 27.4 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
12 Aug after 26.2 °C 23 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
13 Aug after 25.7 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
14 Aug after 26.3 °C 24 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
15 Aug after 27.8 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
16 Aug after 28.4 °C 18 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
17 Aug after 28.8 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
18 Aug after 27.2 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
19 Aug after 26.5 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 20 Jul 2025
After · 16 Aug 2025

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 8 August 2025 the air beside the fire reached 77 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 55: 3.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak77 µg/m³
Days over the guideline17 days
PM1079 µg/m³
Optical depth0.85
25262728293031123456789101112
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 · 96Every 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 Solwezi fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 27 July 2025 and 9 August 2025: 14 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 3,158 hectares (31.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Solwezi (3,175 ha, 0.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 27.8 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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.