Karonga fire, 14 October 2021 Karonga
The fire started on 14 October 2021 in Karonga, Malawi, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,686 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 162th largest in Northern Region since 2016 (of 418 with a page). Number 21 in Malawi in 2021, of 66.
The power measured by the satellite is low (15.4 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
- Burnt area
- 1,686ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 2days
- 14 Oct 2021 – 15 Oct 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 14 Oct
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 52
- in a single hotspot: 15 MW
- Energy released
- 311MW
- sum of detected power
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.
This area had burned before
75% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 32 ha in 2017, 960 ha in 2018, 924 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,263 ha that had burned before.
- 960 ha Karonga fire, October 2018 1,948 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 924 ha Karonga fire, October 2020 1,606 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 29 ha Karonga fire, October 2017 3,935 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3 ha Karonga fire, October 2017 2,050 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Karonga where it started1,696 ha reached on 11 Oct0.5 %
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.
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 · 52Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 6,676 haKaronga14 October 2025 · 21 days · 1 km away
- 10,386 haChitipa25 October 2025 · 18 days · 8 km away
- 5,640 haChitipa1 November 2025 · 12 days · 28 km away
- 8,073 haKaronga23 October 2025 · 19 days · 30 km away
- 10,369 haChitipa 13 October 2026 · 11 days · 37 km away
- 22,043 haChitipa26 October 2025 · 14 days · 39 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Karonga fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 14 October 2021 and 15 October 2021: 2 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 1,686 hectares (16.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Karonga (1,696 ha, 0.5 %).
- 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.
Report an error
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.