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Chikwawa fire, 4 October 2016 Chikwawa

Out · last detection 13 Oct 2016, 10:41 UTC

The fire started on 4 October 2016 in Chikwawa, Malawi, and satellites saw it burning for 10 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.

Burnt area
13,226ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
4 Oct 2016 – 13 Oct 2016
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
4 Oct
2016
Heat detections
463
in a single hotspot: 224 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

13 Oct 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Oct13 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

45678910111213

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
57km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

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.

What happened to each town

  1. Chikwawa where it started
    13,283 ha reached on 30 Sept
    2.7 %

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)
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.

Before · 27 Sept 2016
After · 20 Oct 2016

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.
⬇ 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 Malawi ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Chikwawa fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 October 2016 and 13 October 2016: 10 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 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

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 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.