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Karonga fire, 15 October 2017 Karonga

Out · last detection 22 Oct 2017, 12:10 UTC

The fire started on 15 October 2017 in Karonga, Malawi, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,935 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 50th largest in Northern Region since 2016 (of 420 with a page). Number 10 in Malawi in 2017, of 62.

Burnt area
3,935ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
15 Oct 2017 – 21 Oct 2017
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
15 Oct
2017
Heat detections
171
in a single hotspot: 42 MW
Danger at start
24
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

22 Oct 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Oct21 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

1516171819202122

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
45km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.7 mm on 29 Oct.

This area had burned before

7% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 275 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Karonga where it started
    3,957 ha reached on 14 Oct
    1.2 %

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)
15 Oct 28.9 °C 35 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
16 Oct 31.4 °C 26 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
17 Oct 32.1 °C 30 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
18 Oct 33.3 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
19 Oct 31.8 °C 22 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
20 Oct 32.8 °C 23 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
21 Oct 32.0 °C 19 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
22 Oct after 29.9 °C 27 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
23 Oct after 29.9 °C 35 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
24 Oct after 30.7 °C 29 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
25 Oct after 30.3 °C 38 % 46 km/h 0.8 mm High 27
26 Oct after 32.2 °C 31 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
27 Oct after 31.2 °C 33 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
28 Oct after 31.9 °C 31 % 46 km/h 0.2 mm High 34
29 Oct after 28.4 °C 40 % 55 km/h 1.7 mm Moderate 19

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

Before · 8 Oct 2017
After · 28 Oct 2017

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 · 171Every 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 Karonga fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 15 October 2017 and 21 October 2017: 7 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 3,935 hectares (39.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Karonga (3,957 ha, 1.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.3 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, class Very 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

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.