How long did the Solwezi fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 18 July 2026 and 26 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 4,098 hectares (41.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Solwezi (4,124 ha, 1.2 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 28.8 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 38 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.

ZM · Zambia · 2026-07-18 → 2026-07-26

Solwezi fire, July 2026 Solwezi

Out · last detection 26 Jul 2026, 12:40 UTC

The fire started on 18 July 2026 in Solwezi, Zambia, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,098 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 131th largest in North-Western since 2016 (of 286 with a page). Number 327 in Zambia in 2026, of 610.

Burnt area: 4,098ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 9days; 18 Jul 2026 – 26 Jul 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 18 Jul; 2026
Heat detections: 125; in a single hotspot: 71 MW
Danger at start: 37; High · FWI index
Energy released: 1.1GW; sum of detected power

Play back 26 Jul 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Jul26 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

1820212223242526

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

38km/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

68% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,567 ha in 2016, 313 ha in 2018, 1,337 ha in 2020, 924 ha in 2021, 438 ha in 2022, 1,521 ha in 2023, 81 ha in 2024, 875 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,798 ha that had burned before.

1,211 ha Solwezi fire, July 2023 3,383 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Solwezi where it started

4,124 ha reached on 16 Jul

1.2 %

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	Danger (FWI)
18 Jul	25.8 °C	18 %	31 km/h	High 37
19 Jul	26.8 °C	18 %	27 km/h	High 36
20 Jul	28.0 °C	19 %	23 km/h	High 36
21 Jul	28.8 °C	17 %	21 km/h	High 36
22 Jul	28.7 °C	23 %	28 km/h	Very high 38
23 Jul	28.3 °C	29 %	30 km/h	High 37
24 Jul	27.6 °C	32 %	29 km/h	High 35
25 Jul	27.1 °C	27 %	38 km/h	High 38
26 Jul	26.1 °C	27 %	37 km/h	High 37
27 Jul after	26.2 °C	28 %	29 km/h	High 36
28 Jul after	27.4 °C	22 %	28 km/h	High 34
29 Jul after	28.4 °C	21 %	32 km/h	High 36
30 Jul after	28.4 °C	24 %	26 km/h	High 37
31 Jul after	27.7 °C	15 %	36 km/h	Very high 41
1 Aug after	26.1 °C	17 %	36 km/h	Very high 42
2 Aug after	25.5 °C	23 %	32 km/h	Very high 38
3 Aug after	26.3 °C	24 %	28 km/h	High 38
4 Aug after	27.2 °C	22 %	30 km/h	High 37
5 Aug after	27.6 °C	22 %	28 km/h	Very high 38

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 11 Jul 2026

After · 2 Aug 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 21 July 2026 the air beside the fire reached 85 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 58: 3.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak85 µg/m³

Days over the guideline14 days

PM1088 µg/m³

Optical depth0.75

WHO 15

1617181920212223242526272829

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 · 125Every 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 Solwezi fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 18 July 2026 and 26 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 4,098 hectares (41.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Solwezi (4,124 ha, 1.2 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 28.8 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 38 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

Where it burned