How long did the Mitsinjo fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 18 October 2025 and 3 November 2025: 17 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 3,094 hectares (30.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Mitsinjo (3,110 ha, 0.7 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 35.9 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 46 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 Madagascar (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

MG · Madagascar · 2025-10-18 → 2025-11-03

Mitsinjo fire, October 2025 Mitsinjo

Out · last detection 2 Nov 2025, 10:37 UTC

The fire started on 18 October 2025 in Mitsinjo, Madagascar, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,094 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 22th largest in Boeny since 2016 (of 41 with a page). Number 42 in Madagascar in 2025, of 95.

Burnt area: 3,094ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 17days; 18 Oct 2025 – 3 Nov 2025
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 18 Oct; 2025
Heat detections: 85; in a single hotspot: 210 MW
Danger at start: 39; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 2.0GW; sum of detected power

Play back 2 Nov 2025

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Oct3 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

1819202224252627282912

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

46km/h · peak gust

25%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.7 mm on 4 Nov.

This area had burned before

65% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,605 ha in 2017, 703 ha in 2019, 1,000 ha in 2021, 586 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,001 ha that had burned before.

1,605 ha Mitsinjo fire, September 2017 3,009 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Mitsinjo where it started

3,110 ha reached on 18 Oct

0.7 %

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)
18 Oct	34.2 °C	28 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
19 Oct	34.6 °C	25 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
20 Oct	32.3 °C	36 %	41 km/h	0.4 mm	Very high 39
21 Oct	32.8 °C	38 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
22 Oct	32.7 °C	42 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
23 Oct	32.8 °C	43 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
24 Oct	35.1 °C	27 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
25 Oct	35.9 °C	32 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
26 Oct	35.7 °C	28 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
27 Oct	35.2 °C	28 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
28 Oct	35.0 °C	31 %	40 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 39
29 Oct	33.6 °C	35 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
30 Oct	31.7 °C	55 %	37 km/h	2.5 mm	Low 11
31 Oct	31.5 °C	57 %	31 km/h	1.2 mm	Moderate 12
1 Nov	34.2 °C	29 %	39 km/h	0.3 mm	High 34
2 Nov	34.9 °C	31 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
3 Nov	33.3 °C	48 %	39 km/h	0.4 mm	High 30
4 Nov after	32.3 °C	55 %	36 km/h	3.7 mm	Low 8

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 11 Oct 2025

After · 10 Nov 2025

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.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 17 October 2025 the air beside the fire reached 34 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 15: 1.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak34 µg/m³

Days over the guideline1 day

PM1037 µg/m³

Optical depth0.55

WHO 15

16171819202122232425262728293031123456

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 · 85Every 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 Madagascar ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Mitsinjo fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 18 October 2025 and 3 November 2025: 17 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 3,094 hectares (30.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Mitsinjo (3,110 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 35.9 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 46 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 Madagascar (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.

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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.

Where it burned