Chitipa fire, 20 October 2026 Rumphi, Chitipa
The fire started on 20 October 2026 in Chitipa, Malawi, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,119 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 114th largest in Northern Region since 2016 (of 427 with a page). Number 24 in Malawi in 2026, of 107.
The power measured by the satellite is low (23.4 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Compare with…
Is it still active?
No detections since 24 Oct 2026, 11:34 UTC. That usually means no flame is visible from space any more, although hotspots may remain. Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
- Burnt area
- 2,119ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 5days
- 20 Oct 2026 – 24 Oct 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 20 Oct
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 36
- in a single hotspot: 23 MW
- Danger at start
- 4
- Very low · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 67MW
- 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 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
82% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,774 ha in 2017, 107 ha in 2018, 1,327 ha in 2019, 277 ha in 2022, 714 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,740 ha that had burned before.
- 1,604 ha Chitipa fire, October 2017 4,007 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,315 ha Rumphi fire, August 2019 2,737 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 714 ha Rumphi fire, August 2023 1,092 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 277 ha Chitipa fire, October 2022 1,353 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 170 ha Chitipa fire, June 2017 2,425 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 107 ha Chitipa fire, August 2018 1,207 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 12 ha Rumphi fire, August 2019 11,230 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
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
-
1,198 ha reached on 21 Oct0.3 %
-
Chitipa where it started935 ha reached on 21 Oct0.2 %
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.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 0.18 hectares of built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20 Oct | 25.9 °C | 32 % | 37 km/h | 4.5 mm | Very low 4 |
| 21 Oct | 26.6 °C | 25 % | 36 km/h | 0.7 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 22 Oct | 28.2 °C | 22 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 23 Oct | 28.3 °C | 14 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
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.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 21 October 2026 the air beside the fire reached 49 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 32: 2.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 36Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 7,693 haChitipa29 July 2016 · 6 days · 15 km away
- 11,230 haRumphi3 August 2019 · 7 days · 19 km away
- 7,699 haMafinga15 October 2017 · 12 days · 23 km away
- 11,134 haMafinga11 October 2017 · 11 days · 25 km away
- 15,016 haMafingaSeptember 2025 · 30 days · 39 km away
- 5,987 haMafinga17 September 2026 · 29 days · 39 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Chitipa fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 20 October 2026 to 24 October 2026 (5 days). The perimeter dates it from 21 October 2026 to 24 October 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,119 hectares (21.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Rumphi (1,198 ha, 0.3 %); Chitipa (935 ha, 0.2 %).
- Is the Chitipa fire still active?
- No fire detections since 24 Oct 2026, 11:34 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 28.2 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 23, class High.
- 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.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 21 October 2026 to 24 October 2026. 36 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.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.