Mzimba fire, 14 October 2018 Nkhata Bay, Mzimba
The fire started on 14 October 2018 in Mzimba, Malawi, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,132 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 109th largest in Northern Region since 2016 (of 418 with a page). Number 16 in Malawi in 2018, of 73.
- Burnt area
- 2,132ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 5days
- 14 Oct 2018 – 18 Oct 2018
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 14 Oct
- 2018
- Heat detections
- 125
- in a single hotspot: 65 MW
- Energy released
- 1.4GW
- 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.
This area had burned before
97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,027 ha in 2016, 1,087 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,062 ha that had burned before.
- 2,027 ha Nkhata Bay fire, September 2016 69,845 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 819 ha Nkhata Bay fire, October 2017 1,432 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 267 ha Nkhata Bay fire, October 2017 13,194 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
1,915 ha reached on 14 Oct0.5 %
-
Mzimba where it started231 ha reached on 13 Oct0.0 %
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.
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 · 125Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 69,845 haNkhata Bay24 September 2016 · 57 days · 8 km away
- 28,618 haNkhata Bay11 October 2022 · 32 days · 8 km away
- 64,817 haNkhata Bay9 October 2023 · 23 days · 16 km away
- 63,964 haNkhata Bay19 October 2024 · 14 days · 23 km away
- 14,277 haNkhata Bay18 October 2022 · 24 days · 23 km away
- 20,590 haNkhata Bay18 October 2020 · 13 days · 27 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Mzimba fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 14 October 2018 and 18 October 2018: 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 2,132 hectares (21.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Nkhata Bay (1,915 ha, 0.5 %); Mzimba (231 ha, 0.0 %).
- 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
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.