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Mitsinjo fire, September 2026 Mitsinjo

Out · last detection 30 Sept 2026, 10:21 UTC

The fire started on 10 September 2026 in Mitsinjo, Madagascar, and satellites saw it burning for 21 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,560 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 18th largest in Boeny since 2016 (of 41 with a page). Number 22 in Madagascar in 2026, of 99.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Mitsinjo · 2025Mitsinjo · 2017Mitsinjo · 2026Soalala · 2026

Burnt area
3,560ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
21days
10 Sept 2026 – 30 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
10 Sept
2026
Heat detections
197
in a single hotspot: 151 MW
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
331MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Sept30 Sept
30 Sept 2026

How it evolved, day by day

10 Sept 2026 · 584 MW · 18 11 Sept 2026 · 13 MW · 1 12 Sept 2026 · 6 MW · 1 13 Sept 2026 · 4 MW · 2 14 Sept 2026 · 199 MW · 4 15 Sept 2026 · 3,624 MW · 65 16 Sept 2026 · 306 MW · 28 17 Sept 2026 · 268 MW · 29 18 Sept 2026 · 351 MW · 21 19 Sept 2026 · 109 MW · 5 20 Sept 2026 · 13 MW · 4 21 Sept 2026 · 26 MW · 8 22 Sept 2026 · 7 MW · 1 26 Sept 2026 · 84 MW · 6 27 Sept 2026 · 14 MW · 1 28 Sept 2026 · 11 MW · 1 30 Sept 2026 · 10 MW · 2
10 Sept 13 Sept 15 Sept 16 Sept 19 Sept 22 Sept 28 Sept

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
54km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

17% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 293 ha in 2021, 509 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 612 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 2.2% of the area of London (36 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

  1. Mitsinjo where it started
    3,579 ha reached on 10 Sept
    0.8 %

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.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025
Built-up area0.32 ha
Residents≈ 100

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.32 hectares of built-up land and about 100 residents (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
10 Sept 33.6 °C 29 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
11 Sept 32.0 °C 31 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
12 Sept 31.4 °C 36 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
13 Sept 31.3 °C 37 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
14 Sept 33.2 °C 26 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
15 Sept 33.6 °C 26 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
16 Sept 33.3 °C 25 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
17 Sept 32.3 °C 24 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
18 Sept 32.5 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
19 Sept 32.6 °C 32 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
20 Sept 33.1 °C 31 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
21 Sept 31.6 °C 34 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
22 Sept 30.9 °C 40 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
23 Sept 30.9 °C 44 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
24 Sept 30.7 °C 49 % 31 km/h 0.2 mm High 29
25 Sept 32.5 °C 32 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
26 Sept 33.2 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
27 Sept 33.7 °C 32 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
28 Sept 32.8 °C 36 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
29 Sept 33.6 °C 35 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
30 Sept 32.9 °C 35 % 37 km/h 0.2 mm High 36
1 Oct after 33.5 °C 32 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
2 Oct after 34.9 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
3 Oct after 34.2 °C 29 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
4 Oct after 33.4 °C 32 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
5 Oct after 33.8 °C 32 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
6 Oct after 33.6 °C 34 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
7 Oct after 33.2 °C 36 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
8 Oct after 32.5 °C 38 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
9 Oct after 33.1 °C 50 % 39 km/h 0.2 mm High 32
10 Oct after 32.1 °C 53 % 33 km/h 0.1 mm High 27

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Sept 2026
After · 7 Oct 2026

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 19 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 65 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 31: 2.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak65 µg/m³
Days over the guideline5 days
PM1067 µg/m³
Optical depth0.67
89101112131415161718192021222324252627282930123
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 · 197Every 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Madagascar ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Mitsinjo fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 10 September 2026 to 30 September 2026 (21 days). The perimeter dates it from 10 September 2026 to 23 September 2026.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,560 hectares (35.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mitsinjo (3,579 ha, 0.8 %).
Is the Mitsinjo fire still active?
No fire detections since 30 Sept 2026, 10:21 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.7 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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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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 10 September 2026 to 23 September 2026. 197 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.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

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.