How long did the Karonga fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 16 October 2026 to 26 October 2026 (11 days). The perimeter dates it from 22 October 2026 to 26 October 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 1,139 hectares (11.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Karonga (1,145 ha, 0.3 %).

Is the Karonga fire still active?

No fire detections since 26 Oct 2026, 11:40 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 36.4 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 28, 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.

MW · Malawi · 2026-10-16 → 2026-10-26

Karonga fire, October 2026 Karonga

Dying down · last detection 26 Oct 2026, 11:40 UTC

The fire started on 16 October 2026 in Karonga, Malawi, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,139 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 340th largest in Northern Region since 2016 (of 428 with a page). Number 90 in Malawi in 2026, of 108.

The power measured by the satellite is low (24.1 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Karonga · 2025 Karonga · 2026 Chitipa · 2025 Chitipa · 2026

Is it still active?

No detections since 26 Oct 2026, 11:40 UTC. That usually means no flame is visible from space any more, although hotspots may remain. 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.

Burnt area: 1,139ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 11days; 16 Oct 2026 – 26 Oct 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 16 Oct; 2026
Heat detections: 21; in a single hotspot: 24 MW
Danger at start: 12; Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power: 22MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Oct26 Oct

Play back 26 Oct 2026

How it evolved, day by day

16 Oct 19 Oct 22 Oct 23 Oct 24 Oct

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

The weather it burned in

36°high

44km/h · peak gust

27%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 0.7% of the area of London (11 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

Karonga where it started

1,145 ha reached on 16 Oct

0.3 %

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) · forecast models, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives

Day	High	Min. humidity	Peak gust	Rain	Danger (FWI)
16 Oct	31.0 °C	39 %	35 km/h	0.1 mm	Moderate 12
17 Oct	30.9 °C	38 %	33 km/h	1.2 mm	Low 10
18 Oct	31.0 °C	44 %	32 km/h	1.8 mm	Low 6
19 Oct	32.8 °C	37 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 13
20 Oct	33.6 °C	41 %	30 km/h	0.2 mm	Moderate 14
21 Oct	34.5 °C	35 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
22 Oct	36.4 °C	27 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 21
23 Oct	35.7 °C	29 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
24 Oct	34.5 °C	38 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
25 Oct	32.8 °C	38 %	38 km/h	5.6 mm	Low 7
26 Oct	32.5 °C	38 %	32 km/h	0.8 mm	Moderate 12
27 Oct after	32.5 °C	45 %	31 km/h	0.6 mm	Moderate 14

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 9 Oct 2026

After · 26 Oct 2026

Before After

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 · 21Every 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

All fires in Malawi ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Karonga fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 16 October 2026 to 26 October 2026 (11 days). The perimeter dates it from 22 October 2026 to 26 October 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 1,139 hectares (11.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Karonga (1,145 ha, 0.3 %).
Is the Karonga fire still active?: No fire detections since 26 Oct 2026, 11:40 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 36.4 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 28, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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

What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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How we know this

Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 22 October 2026 to 26 October 2026. 21 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
We have not matched this page with any official record.
Weather: ECMWF IFS model, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.