Karonga fire, 14 October 2025 Karonga
The fire started on 14 October 2025 in Karonga, Malawi, and satellites saw it burning for 21 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,676 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 24th largest in Northern Region since 2016 (of 418 with a page). Number 6 in Malawi in 2025, of 76.
- Burnt area
- 6,676ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 21days
- 14 Oct 2025 – 3 Nov 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 14 Oct
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 273
- in a single hotspot: 103 MW
- Danger at start
- 40
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 2.3GW
- 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.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.8 mm on 9 Nov.
This area had burned before
71% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,284 ha in 2016, 1,624 ha in 2017, 501 ha in 2018, 1,800 ha in 2019, 1,043 ha in 2020, 867 ha in 2021, 392 ha in 2022, 2,794 ha in 2023, 941 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,768 ha that had burned before.
- 1,800 ha Karonga fire, October 2019 2,176 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,517 ha Karonga fire, October 2017 2,050 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,478 ha Karonga fire, October 2023 1,756 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,043 ha Karonga fire, October 2020 1,606 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 997 ha Karonga fire, October 2023 2,727 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 951 ha Karonga fire, October 2016 1,517 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 941 ha Karonga fire, October 2024 1,107 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 867 ha Karonga fire, October 2021 1,686 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Karonga where it started6,716 ha reached on 9 Oct2.0 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14 Oct | 28.0 °C | 30 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 15 Oct | 28.5 °C | 34 % | 43 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 35 |
| 16 Oct | 29.8 °C | 33 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 17 Oct | 29.1 °C | 32 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 18 Oct | 28.3 °C | 29 % | 55 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 19 Oct | 28.7 °C | 28 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 20 Oct | 29.3 °C | 27 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 21 Oct | 29.3 °C | 32 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 22 Oct | 28.9 °C | 39 % | 52 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 36 |
| 23 Oct | 28.4 °C | 41 % | 52 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 34 |
| 24 Oct | 29.1 °C | 41 % | 44 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 32 |
| 25 Oct | 29.7 °C | 29 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 26 Oct | 31.0 °C | 26 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 27 Oct | 31.0 °C | 32 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 28 Oct | 31.5 °C | 29 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 29 Oct | 30.3 °C | 31 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 30 Oct | 29.9 °C | 31 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 31 Oct | 29.4 °C | 31 % | 55 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 1 Nov | 30.1 °C | 23 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 2 Nov | 29.8 °C | 24 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 3 Nov | 29.8 °C | 33 % | 61 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 43 |
| 4 Nov after | 28.9 °C | 39 % | 58 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 38 |
| 5 Nov after | 30.0 °C | 31 % | 45 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 34 |
| 6 Nov after | 30.9 °C | 35 % | 44 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 34 |
| 7 Nov after | 29.9 °C | 36 % | 44 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 35 |
| 8 Nov after | 29.6 °C | 44 % | 48 km/h | 0.8 mm | High 26 |
| 9 Nov after | 27.9 °C | 45 % | 42 km/h | 1.8 mm | Moderate 13 |
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 20 October 2025 the air beside the fire reached 35 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 26: 1.7 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 · 273Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 10,386 haChitipa25 October 2025 · 18 days · 9 km away
- 5,627 haChitipa18 October 2025 · 18 days · 13 km away
- 5,640 haChitipa1 November 2025 · 12 days · 27 km away
- 8,073 haKaronga23 October 2025 · 19 days · 29 km away
- 10,369 haChitipa 13 October 2026 · 11 days · 38 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 2025 and 3 November 2025: 21 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 6,676 hectares (66.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Karonga (6,716 ha, 2.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 31.5 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 61 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, 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.
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.