Burned area
satellite only9,790ha
Union of 3 GWIS (Copernicus) perimeters: overlapping areas count once.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 18 Oct 2025 – 11 Nov 2025
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
MW · Malawi · –
Karonga fire, 18 October 2025 Chitipa, Karonga
Out · last detection 11 Nov 2025, 11:32 UTC
The fire started on 18 October 2025 in Karonga, Malawi, and satellites saw it burning for 25 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,790 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
Number 4 in Malawi in 2025, of 76.
GWIS near-real-time perimeter, from the layer that changed in August 2025: this fire is not compared with fires from earlier years, because since then the GWIS layer gives more and larger perimeters.
Use this data
Compare with…
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-11-15matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only25days
18 Oct 2025 to 11 Nov 2025: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 11 Nov 2025, 11:32 UTC
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only18 Oct 2025
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 18 Oct 2025
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only353
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 143 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP + NOAA-20)
- Date
- 18 Oct 2025 – 11 Nov 2025
+− cross-check
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
The worst day
satellite only486MW
Total radiative power on 29 October 2025; hotspots that day: 51.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 29 Oct 2025
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model37.8FWI · high
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 15.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 18 Oct 2025, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model29.6°C · 29% RH
High of 29.6 °C and minimum humidity of 29% on 28 October 2025; gusts of 61 km/h on 3 November 2025.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 18 Oct 2025 – 11 Nov 2025
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
logName: Chitipa → Karonga.
-
logArea: 10,386 → 9,790 ha.
-
logStart date: 25 October 2025 → 18 October 2025.
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
Area logged each night
Move the slider to see which area the page published each day.
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/karonga-2025-10-9?v=2026-11-15A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire karonga-2025-10-9.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-10-18 | 6 | 42 | 26.4 | 16.7 | 29 | 20.2 | 55.1 | 0 | 37.8 | alto | 1 |
| 2025-10-19 | 7 | 38 | 26.8 | 15 | 27 | 17.1 | 46.4 | 0 | 35.4 | alto | 1 |
| 2025-10-20 | 9 | 102 | 27.4 | 16.3 | 27 | 19 | 52.2 | 0 | 37.5 | alto | 1 |
| 2025-10-21 | 3 | 16 | 27.4 | 15.7 | 32 | 16.9 | 45.7 | 0 | 35.7 | alto | 1 |
| 2025-10-22 | 6 | 25 | 27 | 16.4 | 38 | 19.3 | 51.8 | 0.3 | 34.7 | alto | 1 |
| 2025-10-23 | 4 | 40 | 26.5 | 16.3 | 41 | 18.7 | 51.5 | 0.5 | 32.2 | alto | 1 |
| 2025-10-24 | 5 | 38 | 27.2 | 15.1 | 41 | 15.9 | 43.9 | 0.2 | 30.1 | alto | 1 |
| 2025-10-25 | 12 | 72 | 27.8 | 16.8 | 28 | 15.7 | 44.3 | 0 | 32.4 | alto | 1 |
| 2025-10-26 | 9 | 33 | 29.1 | 15.6 | 26 | 12.8 | 42.1 | 0 | 32.2 | alto | 1 |
| 2025-10-27 | 10 | 121 | 29.1 | 17.1 | 32 | 15.5 | 42.1 | 0 | 34.6 | alto | 1 |
| 2025-10-28 | 3 | 11 | 29.6 | 17.9 | 29 | 19.8 | 53.3 | 0 | 38.7 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2025-10-29 | 51 | 486 | 28.4 | 17.7 | 30 | 19.4 | 52.6 | 0 | 38.6 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2025-10-30 | 34 | 212 | 28 | 17.1 | 31 | 19.2 | 49.3 | 0 | 38.7 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2025-10-31 | 15 | 65 | 27.5 | 15.8 | 30 | 20 | 55.4 | 0 | 39.7 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2025-11-01 | 33 | 405 | 28.2 | 16.7 | 22 | 18.5 | 51.1 | 0 | 40 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2025-11-02 | 7 | 83 | 27.9 | 15.1 | 23 | 17.4 | 49.3 | 0 | 39.3 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2025-11-03 | 14 | 77 | 27.9 | 17.6 | 33 | 21.6 | 60.8 | 0.1 | 41.5 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2025-11-04 | 11 | 69 | 27 | 17.5 | 38 | 20.2 | 57.6 | 0.2 | 36.8 | alto | 1 |
| 2025-11-05 | 27 | 394 | 28.1 | 17.3 | 30 | 16 | 45.4 | 0.1 | 33.5 | alto | 1 |
| 2025-11-06 | 18 | 196 | 29 | 17.6 | 35 | 15.9 | 44.3 | 0.1 | 33.6 | alto | 1 |
| 2025-11-07 | 27 | 178 | 28 | 18.5 | 36 | 15.9 | 44.3 | 0.5 | 33.8 | alto | 1 |
| 2025-11-08 | 17 | 131 | 27.7 | 17.9 | 44 | 17.9 | 47.5 | 0.8 | 24.9 | alto | 1 |
| 2025-11-09 | 15 | 182 | 26 | 17.2 | 44 | 14.7 | 42.5 | 1.8 | 12.2 | moderado | 1 |
| 2025-11-10 | 8 | 109 | 26.2 | 16.6 | 50 | 14.6 | 44.6 | 2.7 | 7.3 | bajo | 1 |
| 2025-11-11 | 2 | 12 | 25.7 | 15.9 | 49 | 16.1 | 46.1 | 2.2 | 7.7 | bajo | 1 |
| 2025-11-12 | 0 | 0 | 26 | 16.5 | 48 | 12 | 33.1 | 2.4 | 5.9 | bajo | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: GWIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 9,790ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 25days
- 18 Oct 2025 – 11 Nov 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 18 Oct
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 353
- in a single hotspot: 143 MW
- Danger at start
- 38
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 125MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
18 Oct11 Nov
11 Nov 2025
How it evolved, day by day
18 Oct
23 Oct
29 Oct
2 Nov
7 Nov
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
61km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity
It had gone 15 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.4 mm on 12 Nov.
This area had burned before
25% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,055 ha in 2017, 786 ha in 2020, 649 ha in 2021, 66 ha in 2022, 9 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,423 ha that had burned before.
- 786 ha Chitipa fire, October 2020 1,012 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 633 ha Karonga fire, October 2017 1,068 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 632 ha Chitipa fire, November 2021 1,237 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 423 ha Chitipa fire, October 2017 1,944 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 66 ha Karonga fire, October 2022 3,387 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 17 ha Karonga fire, October 2021 1,686 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 9 ha Karonga fire, October 2023 2,727 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
6,023 ha1.4 %
-
Karonga where it started4,427 ha1.3 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area 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)
Started with Strong wind: 13 % of the area in Malawi
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18 Oct | 26.4 °C | 29 % | 55 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 19 Oct | 26.8 °C | 27 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 20 Oct | 27.4 °C | 27 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 21 Oct | 27.4 °C | 32 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 22 Oct | 27.0 °C | 38 % | 52 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 35 |
| 23 Oct | 26.5 °C | 41 % | 52 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 32 |
| 24 Oct | 27.2 °C | 41 % | 44 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 30 |
| 25 Oct | 27.8 °C | 28 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 26 Oct | 29.1 °C | 26 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 27 Oct | 29.1 °C | 32 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 28 Oct | 29.6 °C | 29 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 29 Oct | 28.4 °C | 30 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 30 Oct | 28.0 °C | 31 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 31 Oct | 27.5 °C | 30 % | 55 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 1 Nov | 28.2 °C | 22 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 2 Nov | 27.9 °C | 23 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 3 Nov | 27.9 °C | 33 % | 61 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 42 |
| 4 Nov | 27.0 °C | 38 % | 58 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 37 |
| 5 Nov | 28.1 °C | 30 % | 45 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 34 |
| 6 Nov | 29.0 °C | 35 % | 44 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 34 |
| 7 Nov | 28.0 °C | 36 % | 44 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 34 |
| 8 Nov | 27.7 °C | 44 % | 48 km/h | 0.8 mm | High 25 |
| 9 Nov | 26.0 °C | 44 % | 42 km/h | 1.8 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 10 Nov | 26.2 °C | 50 % | 45 km/h | 2.7 mm | Low 7 |
| 11 Nov | 25.7 °C | 49 % | 46 km/h | 2.2 mm | Low 8 |
| 12 Nov after | 26.0 °C | 48 % | 33 km/h | 2.4 mm | Low 6 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 11 Oct 2025
After · 18 Nov 2025
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
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 2 November 2025 the air beside the fire reached 33 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 21: 1.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
PM2.5 peak33 µg/m³
Days over the guideline5 days
PM1034 µg/m³
Optical depth0.48
WHO 15
23 Oct28 Oct2 Nov7 Nov12 Nov
Good
Fair
Moderate
Poor
Very poor
Extremely poor
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 · 353Every 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 time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 6,628 haKaronga9 October 2025 · 33 days · 9 km away
- 10,157 haChitipa15 October 2026 · 27 days · 27 km away
- 31,063 haKaronga13 October 2026 · 29 days · 30 km away
- 7,724 haKaronga18 October 2025 · 31 days · 31 km away
- 5,640 haChitipa1 November 2025 · 12 days · 34 km away
- 21,995 haChitipa19 October 2025 · 25 days · 36 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Karonga fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 18 October 2025 to 11 November 2025 (25 days). The perimeter dates it from 25 October 2025 to 11 November 2025.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 9,790 hectares (97.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Chitipa (6,023 ha, 1.4 %); Karonga (4,427 ha, 1.3 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 29.6 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 61 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
History of this page · 3 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Name: Chitipa → Karonga.
- Area: 10,386 → 9,790 ha.
- Start date: 25 October 2025 → 18 October 2025.
RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 25 October 2025 to 11 November 2025. 353 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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.