Chikwawa fire, 30 September 2016 Chikwawa
The fire started on 30 September 2016 in Chikwawa, Malawi, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 13,226 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the largest fire in Southern Region since 2016 (of 105 with a page). Number 2 in Malawi in 2016, of 78.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 13,226ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 14days
- 30 Sept 2016 – 13 Oct 2016
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 30 Sept
- 2016
- Heat detections
- 463
- in a single hotspot: 224 MW
- Danger at start
- 40
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 238MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 36 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Chikwawa where it started13,283 ha reached on 30 Sept2.7 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 30 Sept | 34.3 °C | 27 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 1 Oct | 35.4 °C | 21 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 2 Oct | 36.4 °C | 23 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 3 Oct | 26.3 °C | 39 % | 57 km/h | 1.1 mm | High 30 |
| 4 Oct | 23.7 °C | 50 % | 42 km/h | 0.7 mm | High 21 |
| 5 Oct | 30.4 °C | 23 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 6 Oct | 34.6 °C | 18 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 7 Oct | 37.2 °C | 16 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 8 Oct | 37.1 °C | 16 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 9 Oct | 37.2 °C | 21 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 10 Oct | 37.0 °C | 23 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 11 Oct | 35.0 °C | 26 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 12 Oct | 37.2 °C | 20 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 13 Oct | 34.5 °C | 27 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 14 Oct after | 32.7 °C | 30 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 15 Oct after | 32.8 °C | 33 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 16 Oct after | 37.2 °C | 19 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 17 Oct after | 38.3 °C | 16 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 18 Oct after | 35.8 °C | 21 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 19 Oct after | 34.8 °C | 23 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 20 Oct after | 34.4 °C | 30 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 21 Oct after | 34.8 °C | 30 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 22 Oct after | 37.7 °C | 22 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 23 Oct after | 38.5 °C | 18 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.
Detections table · 463Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 9,003 haChikwawaSeptember 2018 · 17 days · 4 km away
- 5,481 haChikwawa12 August 2017 · 7 days · 6 km away
- 10,352 haChikwawaAugust 2020 · 13 days · 12 km away
- 7,966 haMoatize9 September 2026 · 21 days · 34 km away
- 67,089 haMoatize5 September 2026 · 25 days · 37 km away
- 6,906 haMoatize4 September 2016 · 14 days · 39 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Chikwawa fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 30 September 2016 to 13 October 2016 (14 days). The perimeter dates it from 4 October 2016 to 13 October 2016.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 13,226 hectares (132.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Chikwawa (13,283 ha, 2.7 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.2 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 57 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 59, class Extreme.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Malawi (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
History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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.
Report an error
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 4 October 2016 to 13 October 2016. 463 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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 3.0 Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY 3.0 IGO)). 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.