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Karonga fire, 12 October 2022 Karonga, Chitipa

Out · last detection 19 Oct 2022, 10:49 UTC

The fire started on 12 October 2022 in Karonga, Malawi, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,387 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 59th largest in Northern Region since 2016 (of 418 with a page). Number 5 in Malawi in 2022, of 57.

Burnt area
3,387ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
12 Oct 2022 – 19 Oct 2022
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
12 Oct
2022
Heat detections
143
in a single hotspot: 58 MW
Danger at start
41
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

19 Oct 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Oct19 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

12141516171819

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

The weather it burned in

30°high
56km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

59% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 260 ha in 2016, 241 ha in 2017, 1,287 ha in 2018, 431 ha in 2020, 879 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,009 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Karonga where it started
    3,280 ha reached on 12 Oct
    1.0 %
  2. Chitipa
    127 ha reached on 12 Oct
    0.0 %

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)
12 Oct 27.5 °C 28 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
13 Oct 29.0 °C 23 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
14 Oct 29.4 °C 20 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
15 Oct 29.1 °C 20 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
16 Oct 29.2 °C 27 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
17 Oct 29.0 °C 34 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
18 Oct 29.6 °C 32 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
19 Oct 29.7 °C 30 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
20 Oct after 28.6 °C 29 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
21 Oct after 29.6 °C 29 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
22 Oct after 30.4 °C 29 % 46 km/h 0.1 mm High 38
23 Oct after 31.0 °C 24 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
24 Oct after 31.4 °C 30 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
25 Oct after 30.5 °C 32 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
26 Oct after 31.9 °C 28 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
27 Oct after 30.9 °C 25 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
28 Oct after 31.7 °C 24 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
29 Oct after 31.4 °C 27 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Oct 2022
After · 26 Oct 2022

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 · 143Every 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 12 October 2022 and 19 October 2022: 8 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 3,387 hectares (33.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Karonga (3,280 ha, 1.0 %); Chitipa (127 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.7 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 56 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.