Maara fire, February 2019 Gichugu, Kirinyaga Central, Manyatta
The fire started on 25 February 2019 in Maara, Kenya, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,943 hectares from heat detections, spread across 8 municipalities.
Number 2 in Kenya in 2019, of 40.
- Burnt area
- 7,943ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 5days
- 25 Feb 2019 – 1 Mar 2019
- Municipalities hit
- 8
- constituencies
- Started on
- 25 Feb
- 2019
- Heat detections
- 302
- in a single hotspot: 176 MW
- Danger at start
- 0
- Very low · FWI index
- Energy released
- 5.9GW
- 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 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.2 mm on 2 Mar.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
2,612 ha reached on 26 Feb5.6 %
-
1,321 ha reached on 27 Feb5.5 %
-
1,279 ha reached on 26 Feb3.6 %
-
907 ha reached on 25 Feb1.5 %
-
769 ha reached on 25 Feb2.0 %
-
503 ha reached on 27 Feb1.1 %
-
Maara where it started409 ha reached on 24 Feb0.8 %
-
197 ha reached on 27 Feb0.6 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25 Feb | 10.6 °C | 58 % | 32 km/h | 6.2 mm | Very low 0 |
| 26 Feb | 13.7 °C | 41 % | 32 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very low 0 |
| 27 Feb | 12.5 °C | 48 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 0 |
| 28 Feb | 13.4 °C | 43 % | 31 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very low 0 |
| 1 Mar | 15.3 °C | 32 % | 30 km/h | 0.5 mm | Very low 1 |
| 2 Mar after | 12.8 °C | 37 % | 30 km/h | 1.2 mm | Very low 1 |
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.
Detections table · 302Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 8,531 haSouth ImentiFebruary 2019 · 8 days · 16 km away
- 11,387 haCental ImentiMarch 2022 · 8 days · 23 km away
- 9,979 haCental ImentiSeptember 2026 · 7 days · 23 km away
- 2,393 haBuuriApril 2019 · 5 days · 23 km away
- 2,537 haBuuriOctober 2016 · 3 days · 24 km away
- 1,654 haBuuriFebruary 2017 · 5 days · 24 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Maara fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 25 February 2019 and 1 March 2019: 5 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 7,943 hectares (79.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 8 municipalities: Gichugu (2,612 ha, 5.6 %); Kirinyaga Central (1,321 ha, 5.5 %); Manyatta (1,279 ha, 3.6 %); Nithi (907 ha, 1.5 %); Runyenjes (769 ha, 2.0 %); Mathira (503 ha, 1.1 %); Maara (409 ha, 0.8 %); Ndia (197 ha, 0.6 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 15.3 °C, humidity dropped to 32 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 1, class Very low.
- 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.