Free tools · Seen from space
Fire in Dr Kenneth Kaunda
Fire in the twelve months to October 2026: 1,030 fire detections seen from space; 1,412 ha burnt in the 7 of those months with burnt area out. The most since 2012: 2023, 3,230.
Two readings from space. Fire detections are hot spots a VIIRS satellite saw as it passed, each about 375 m across, counted where they fall in the place: a big fire gives many, a short one between passes none. Burnt area is the ground that looks burnt afterwards, from Sentinel-3 at 300 m, in hectares. Neither is a fire report from the ground.
The last twelve months
- 1,030Fire detectionsNovember 2025 to October 2026
- 1,412 haBurnt7 of the twelve months; the rest not out yet
Show the numbers
| When or what | Figure |
|---|---|
| November 2025 | 19 fire detections |
| December 2025 | 6 fire detections |
| January 2026 | 15 fire detections |
| February 2026 | 8 fire detections |
| March 2026 | 7 fire detections |
| April 2026 | 7 fire detections |
| May 2026 | 67 fire detections |
| June 2026 | 154 fire detections |
| July 2026 | 413 fire detections |
| August 2026 | 235 fire detections |
| September 2026 | 48 fire detections |
| October 2026 | 51 fire detections |
| November 2025 | 0.0 ha burnt (0.000% of the place) |
| December 2025 | 0.0 ha burnt (0.000% of the place) |
| January 2026 | 0.0 ha burnt (0.000% of the place) |
| February 2026 | 0.0 ha burnt (0.000% of the place) |
| March 2026 | 0.0 ha burnt (0.000% of the place) |
| April 2026 | 30 ha burnt (0.002% of the place) |
| May 2026 | 1,382 ha burnt (0.094% of the place) |
| June 2026 | not out yet |
| July 2026 | not out yet |
| August 2026 | not out yet |
| September 2026 | not out yet |
| October 2026 | not out yet |
| Month | Detections | Nominal or high confidence | NOAA-20 (second reading) | Burnt | Share of the place | Land seen |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| October 2026 | 51 | 43 | 38 | not out yet | · | · |
| September 2026 | 48 | 43 | 39 | not out yet | · | · |
| August 2026 | 235 | 222 | 230 | not out yet | · | · |
| July 2026 | 413 | 397 | 520 | not out yet | · | · |
| June 2026 | 154 | 149 | 158 | not out yet | · | · |
| May 2026 | 67 | 66 | 74 | 1,382 ha | 0.094% | 99% |
| April 2026 | 7 | 7 | 5 | 30 ha | 0.002% | 99% |
| March 2026 | 7 | 7 | 1 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 99% |
| February 2026 | 8 | 7 | 21 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 99% |
| January 2026 | 15 | 12 | 26 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 99% |
| December 2025 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 99% |
| November 2025 | 19 | 15 | 14 | 0.0 ha | 0.000% | 99% |
NOAA-20 carries the same instrument as S-NPP and passes about 50 minutes apart, so its count is a second reading of the same fires, not extra fires. “Land seen” is the share of the place’s land the burnt-area product saw often enough that month to tell.
The worst years
- 20233,230 fire detections, most in September 2023; 76,534 ha burnt
- 20202,664 fire detections, most in August 2020; 67,351 ha burnt
- 20212,528 fire detections, most in July 2021; 61,939 ha burnt
By hectares burnt (whole years from 2019): 2023, 76,534 ha (5.2% of the place); 2020, 67,351 ha (4.6% of the place); 2021, 61,939 ha (4.2% of the place).
Every year since 2012
| Year | Fire detections | Burnt | Share of the place |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (10 months) | 1,005 | 5 months out | · |
| 2025 | 1,023 | 25,988 ha | 1.8% |
| 2024 | 1,957 | 58,112 ha | 4.0% |
| 2023 | 3,230 | 76,534 ha | 5.2% |
| 2022 | 1,610 | 34,294 ha | 2.3% |
| 2021 | 2,528 | 61,939 ha | 4.2% |
| 2020 | 2,664 | 67,351 ha | 4.6% |
| 2019 | 820 | 19,253 ha | 1.3% |
| 2018 | 2,510 | 6 months out | · |
| 2017 | 1,511 | · | · |
| 2016 | 290 | · | · |
| 2015 | 959 | · | · |
| 2014 | 1,537 | · | · |
| 2013 | 1,190 | · | · |
| 2012 (11 months) | 1,704 | · | · |
Detections from February 2012 (S-NPP); burnt area from July 2018, so whole years of it from 2019. A larger place’s figures are the sums of its 2026 wards.
Everything we hold for Dr Kenneth Kaunda, on one page
Source
Seen from space by American and European satellites: not fires reported on the ground.
How we worked this out
What we changed: we counted FIRMS’s detections (presumed vegetation fires only) by the 2026 ward their position falls in, and summed CLMS’s burned fraction times each pixel’s area over each ward; municipalities, districts and provinces are the sums of their wards.
Fire detections: we acknowledge the use of data and/or imagery from NASA’s Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS), part of NASA’s LANCE (VIIRS 375 m, S-NPP and NOAA-20). Burnt area: generated using European Union’s Copernicus Land Monitoring Service information (Burnt Area 300 m version 4, DOI 10.2909/8fa58061-28ab-49bb-9b77-c26b50733e34), modified; this does not mean the European Union endorses us.
Dataset: burnt area and fire, release of 12 November 2026.