Kitui Central fire, 17 September 2026 Kitui Central, Kitui East
The fire started on 17 September 2026 in Kitui Central, Kenya, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,200 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 9th largest in Kitui since 2016 (of 13 with a page). Number 30 in Kenya in 2026, of 51.
- Burnt area
- 1,200ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 1day
- 17 Sept 2026 – 17 Sept 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- constituencies
- Started on
- 17 Sept
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 11
- in a single hotspot: 31 MW
- Danger at start
- 38
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 130MW
- 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 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 6.1 mm on 18 Sept.
This area had burned before
52% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 629 ha in 2025.
What happened to each town
-
Kitui Central where it started650 ha reached on 17 Sept0.9 %
-
558 ha reached on 17 Sept0.1 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17 Sept | 30.8 °C | 24 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 18 Sept after | 24.1 °C | 65 % | 38 km/h | 6.1 mm | Very low 4 |
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 19 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 19 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO 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 · 11Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 1,650 haKitui CentralSeptember 2025 · 10 days · 2 km away
- 1,277 haKitui East25 September 2025 · 8 days · 6 km away
- 4,272 haMwingi WestSeptember 2025 · 10 days · 20 km away
- 1,202 haMwingi WestSeptember 2026 · 3 days · 21 km away
- 2,088 haKitui East23 September 2025 · 9 days · 23 km away
- 1,156 haKitui East14 September 2026 · 4 days · 23 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Kitui Central fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 17 September 2026 and 17 September 2026: 1 day 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 1,200 hectares (12.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Kitui Central (650 ha, 0.9 %); Kitui East (558 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 30.8 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, class Very high.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Kenya (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.
Emergency number: 999 · 112
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.