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ZM · Zambia · Lusaka

Wildfires in Luangwa

Luangwa, Zambia, has had 43 large fires recorded by GWIS since 2016: 214,882 hectares burned inside its boundaries, 55% of its area. Fire danger today: extreme (FWI 52).

Only fires of 3,000 ha or more get an entry: smaller ones are not in the lists or the totals on this page.

These figures leave out one page with faulty data, under review. They appear in the lists, marked.

Fire danger, today and the coming days

FWI computed from the Open-Meteo forecast
  1. Wed 4 Extreme 36° · 18 % · 40 km/h
  2. Thu 5 Extreme 34° · 24 % · 37 km/h
  3. Fri 6 Extreme 35° · 23 % · 32 km/h
  4. Sat 7 Very high 37° · 19 % · 34 km/h
  5. Sun 8 Very high 36° · 21 % · 48 km/h
  6. Mon 9 Very high 33° · 35 % · 52 km/h
  7. Tue 10 High 32° · 36 % · 46 km/h
  8. Wed 11 Very high 34° · 23 % · 33 km/h

Canadian Fire Weather Index, the same system Copernicus uses, computed by WorldFires from the weather forecast and two months of past weather for fuel state. It is an estimate per municipality, not an official warning: warnings are issued by each country’s emergency service. Put this widget on your website

Smoke today in Luangwa: hourly forecast

The municipality and its fires

Since 2016

214,882
hectares burned
55 %
of its area
43
fires
3,914
km²

How many times has Luangwa burned?

Luangwa has burned 43 times since 2016, in 11 years: 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026. The most recent: Luangwa fire, October 2026, with 2,970 hectares inside the municipality. Together they add up to 214,882 hectares burned inside the municipality, but the distinct burned area is 122,681 hectares, 31 % of its surface: part of it burned more than once.

  1. 1× 16
  2. 4× 17
  3. 5× 18
  4. 5× 19
  5. 3× 20
  6. 7× 21
  7. 2× 22
  8. 2× 23
  9. 1× 24
  10. 4× 25
  11. 9× 26
43
fires
11
years with fire
214,882
cumulative ha
122,681
distinct ha

Fires larger than 3,000 hectares with a perimeter since 2016 that reached the municipality, even partly. Cumulative hectares add up every fire; the distinct area counts land that burned several times only once. Perimeters and boundaries overlaid by WorldFires.

Where it has burned most often in Zambia

Fires that entered Luangwa

  1. 2,970 ha Luangwa fire, October 2026 where it started 0.8% of the municipality · 4,872 ha in total · 6 days
  2. 3,243 ha Luangwa fire, 19 October 2026 where it started 0.8% of the municipality · 3,225 ha in total · 6 days
  3. 3,145 ha Luangwa fire, 14 October 2026 where it started 0.8% of the municipality · 3,125 ha in total · 7 days
  4. 773 ha Rufunsa fire, 13 October 2026 0.2% of the municipality · 21,498 ha in total · 16 days
  5. 2,361 ha Luangwa fire, 13 October 2026 where it started 0.6% of the municipality · 3,027 ha in total · 12 days
  6. 739 ha Rufunsa fire, 13 October 2026 0.2% of the municipality · 7,918 ha in total · 16 days
  7. 3,804 ha Luangwa fire, 9 September 2026 where it started 1.0% of the municipality · 3,784 ha in total · 9 days
  8. 29,716 ha Luangwa fire, 5 September 2026 where it started 7.6% of the municipality · 29,583 ha in total · 17 days
  9. 7,815 ha Luangwa fire, August 2026 where it started 2.0% of the municipality · 7,825 ha in total · 15 days
  10. 7,086 ha Luangwa fire, July 2026 where it started 1.8% of the municipality · 7,041 ha in total · 19 days
  11. 3,585 ha Luangwa fire, October 2025 where it started 0.9% of the municipality · 3,563 ha in total · 9 days
  12. 3,196 ha Luangwa fire, 23 September 2025 where it started 0.8% of the municipality · 3,175 ha in total · 22 days
  13. 3,037 ha Luangwa fire, 16 September 2025 where it started 0.8% of the municipality · 3,017 ha in total · 6 days
  14. 3,475 ha Luangwa fire, August 2025 where it started 0.9% of the municipality · 3,452 ha in total · 12 days
  15. 2,824 ha Luangwa fire, October 2024 where it started 0.7% of the municipality · 3,090 ha in total · 10 days
  16. 4,549 ha Luangwa fire, October 2023 where it started 1.2% of the municipality · 4,814 ha in total · 11 days
  17. 0 ha Kafue fire, September 2023 0.0% of the municipality · 3,253 ha in total · 9 days
  18. 14,474 ha Luangwa fire, 3 October 2022 where it started 3.7% of the municipality · 14,382 ha in total · 17 days
  19. 10,870 ha Luangwa fire, 1 October 2022 where it started 2.8% of the municipality · 10,689 ha in total · 22 days
  20. 3,459 ha Luangwa fire, November 2021 where it started 0.9% of the municipality · 3,435 ha in total · 11 days
  21. 8,091 ha Luangwa fire, October 2021 where it started 2.1% of the municipality · 15,689 ha in total · 37 days
  22. 3,716 ha Luangwa fire, 15 September 2021 where it started 1.0% of the municipality · 3,691 ha in total · 15 days
  23. 4,485 ha Rufunsa fire, 14 September 2021 1.2% of the municipality · 7,482 ha in total · 19 days
  24. 5,060 ha Luangwa fire, 11 September 2021 where it started 1.3% of the municipality · 5,027 ha in total · 12 days
  25. 3,561 ha Luangwa fire, 10 September 2021 where it started 0.9% of the municipality · 3,538 ha in total · 8 days
  26. 3,469 ha Luangwa fire, 6 September 2021 where it started 0.9% of the municipality · 3,445 ha in total · 12 days
  27. 3,746 ha Luangwa fire, 19 September 2020 where it started 1.0% of the municipality · 3,721 ha in total · 10 days
  28. 3,854 ha Luangwa fire, 17 September 2020 where it started 1.0% of the municipality · 3,829 ha in total · 11 days
  29. 3,286 ha Luangwa fire, 11 September 2020 where it started 0.8% of the municipality · 3,265 ha in total · 14 days
  30. 8,792 ha Luangwa fire, October 2019 where it started 2.2% of the municipality · 8,733 ha in total · 13 days
  31. 18 ha Rufunsa fire, 23 October 2019 0.0% of the municipality · 5,150 ha in total · 17 days
  32. 1,157 ha Rufunsa fire, 17 October 2019 0.3% of the municipality · 8,833 ha in total · 15 days
  33. 102 ha Rufunsa fire, September 2019 0.0% of the municipality · 11,002 ha in total · 20 days
  34. 5,033 ha Luangwa fire, September 2019 where it started 1.3% of the municipality · 4,998 ha in total · 14 days
  35. 3,334 ha Luangwa fire, 22 September 2018 where it started 0.8% of the municipality · 3,314 ha in total · 13 days
  36. 5,535 ha Luangwa fire, 19 September 2018 where it started 1.4% of the municipality · 5,499 ha in total · 14 days
  37. 18,762 ha Rufunsa fire, September 2018 4.8% of the municipality · 23,797 ha in total · 28 days
  38. 1,997 ha Kafue fire, September 2018 0.5% of the municipality · 31,689 ha in total · 19 days
  39. 3,964 ha Luangwa fire, August 2018 where it started 1.0% of the municipality · 3,939 ha in total · 17 days
  40. 3,265 ha Rufunsa fire, 11 October 2017 0.8% of the municipality · 12,878 ha in total · 16 days
  41. 3,263 ha Luangwa fire, 25 September 2017 where it started 0.8% of the municipality · 3,241 ha in total · 8 days
  42. 5,044 ha Luangwa fire, 12 September 2017 where it started 1.3% of the municipality · 5,012 ha in total · 7 days
  43. 3,608 ha Luangwa fire, 11 September 2017 where it started 0.9% of the municipality · 3,584 ha in total · 8 days
  44. 1,392 ha Rufunsa fire, 1 September 2016 0.4% of the municipality · 15,933 ha in total · 32 days

Where this data comes from

Perimeters come from GWIS (Copernicus, CC BY 4.0), rebuilt from heat detections, and municipal boundaries from geoBoundaries/GRID3, Office of the Surveyor General (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0)). The area per municipality is computed by WorldFires by crossing both. The forecast is from Open-Meteo (CC BY 4.0).

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