Karonga fire, 23 October 2025 Karonga
The fire started on 23 October 2025 in Karonga, Malawi, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,073 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 19th largest in Northern Region since 2016 (of 418 with a page). Number 5 in Malawi in 2025, of 76.
- Burnt area
- 8,073ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 19days
- 23 Oct 2025 – 10 Nov 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 23 Oct
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 206
- in a single hotspot: 47 MW
- Danger at start
- 23
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 1.5GW
- 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 20 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.3 mm on 11 Nov.
This area had burned before
48% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,005 ha in 2016, 1,353 ha in 2018, 451 ha in 2019, 1,311 ha in 2020, 212 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,839 ha that had burned before.
- 1,353 ha Karonga fire, October 2018 1,516 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,005 ha Karonga fire, October 2016 1,288 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 982 ha Karonga fire, October 2020 1,423 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 451 ha Karonga fire, October 2019 2,006 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 330 ha Karonga fire, October 2020 1,429 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 212 ha Karonga fire, October 2023 1,477 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Karonga where it started8,114 ha reached on 18 Oct2.4 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23 Oct | 29.3 °C | 44 % | 39 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 23 |
| 24 Oct | 31.3 °C | 36 % | 34 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 24 |
| 25 Oct | 31.6 °C | 27 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 26 Oct | 33.0 °C | 25 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 27 Oct | 33.0 °C | 31 % | 36 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 32 |
| 28 Oct | 32.7 °C | 34 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 29 Oct | 31.6 °C | 33 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 30 Oct | 31.7 °C | 30 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 31 Oct | 31.2 °C | 34 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 1 Nov | 31.8 °C | 25 % | 39 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 33 |
| 2 Nov | 31.4 °C | 27 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 3 Nov | 31.1 °C | 31 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 4 Nov | 30.2 °C | 39 % | 38 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 30 |
| 5 Nov | 31.4 °C | 34 % | 37 km/h | 0.6 mm | High 28 |
| 6 Nov | 31.8 °C | 38 % | 42 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 28 |
| 7 Nov | 31.5 °C | 34 % | 38 km/h | 1.6 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 8 Nov | 31.0 °C | 44 % | 43 km/h | 3.3 mm | Low 8 |
| 9 Nov | 28.5 °C | 50 % | 37 km/h | 4.6 mm | Very low 4 |
| 10 Nov | 29.0 °C | 53 % | 36 km/h | 3.1 mm | Very low 4 |
| 11 Nov after | 28.4 °C | 53 % | 36 km/h | 5.3 mm | Very low 2 |
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 5 November 2025 the air beside the fire reached 30 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 23: 1.5 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 · 206Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Karonga fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 23 October 2025 and 10 November 2025: 19 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 8,073 hectares (80.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Karonga (8,114 ha, 2.4 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 33.0 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, 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
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.