Mzimba fire, 5 October 2026 Mzimba, Nkhotakota
The fire started on 5 October 2026 in Mzimba, Malawi, and satellites saw it burning for 27 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 21,828 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 10th largest in Northern Region since 2016 (of 428 with a page). Number 4 in Malawi in 2026, of 108.
Compare with…
Is it still active?
Satellites detected fire on 31 Oct 2026, 11:02 UTC. Everything suggests it is still burning. Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
- Burnt area
- 21,828ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 27days
- 5 Oct 2026 – 31 Oct 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 5 Oct
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 464
- in a single hotspot: 41 MW
- Danger at start
- 11
- Low · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 125MW
- detected power per day, on average
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 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
23% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,142 ha in 2016, 4,009 ha in 2017, 1,473 ha in 2018, 4,496 ha in 2019, 3,639 ha in 2020, 3,584 ha in 2021, 2,101 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,914 ha that had burned before.
- 4,009 ha Nkhotakota fire, October 2017 4,962 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,639 ha Nkhotakota fire, September 2020 6,035 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,584 ha Nkhotakota fire, September 2021 4,060 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,217 ha Nkhotakota fire, October 2019 5,459 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,101 ha Nkhotakota fire, October 2025 1,934 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,837 ha Nkhotakota fire, October 2016 1,775 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,388 ha Mzimba fire, October 2018 1,324 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 847 ha Mzimba fire, October 2019 1,091 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Mzimba where it started11,751 ha reached on 5 Oct1.1 %
-
10,221 ha reached on 6 Oct2.4 %
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.
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) · forecast models, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 Oct | 28.8 °C | 50 % | 40 km/h | 0.9 mm | Low 11 |
| 6 Oct | 29.8 °C | 39 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 7 Oct | 31.0 °C | 41 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 8 Oct | 32.3 °C | 33 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 9 Oct | 31.6 °C | 36 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 10 Oct | 32.2 °C | 33 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 11 Oct | 30.8 °C | 41 % | 38 km/h | 0.7 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 12 Oct | 30.7 °C | 39 % | 39 km/h | 0.6 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 13 Oct | 31.2 °C | 36 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 14 Oct | 30.5 °C | 40 % | 43 km/h | 1.4 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 15 Oct | 30.8 °C | 36 % | 45 km/h | 0.8 mm | High 24 |
| 16 Oct | 30.6 °C | 37 % | 43 km/h | 0.7 mm | High 23 |
| 17 Oct | 30.6 °C | 34 % | 38 km/h | 1.1 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 18 Oct | 30.6 °C | 33 % | 41 km/h | 1.2 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 19 Oct | 30.6 °C | 36 % | 32 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 22 |
| 20 Oct | 33.1 °C | 32 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 21 Oct | 34.5 °C | 31 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 22 Oct | 36.2 °C | 23 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 23 Oct | 35.9 °C | 23 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 24 Oct | 33.9 °C | 31 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 25 Oct | 31.6 °C | 41 % | 33 km/h | 5.4 mm | Low 6 |
| 26 Oct | 31.5 °C | 44 % | 37 km/h | 1.6 mm | Low 10 |
| 27 Oct | 31.8 °C | 36 % | 41 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 24 |
| 28 Oct | 33.1 °C | 29 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 29 Oct | 34.0 °C | 33 % | 37 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 28 |
| 30 Oct | 30.8 °C | 47 % | 40 km/h | 0.8 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 31 Oct | 30.3 °C | 44 % | 32 km/h | 1.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
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 9 October 2026 the air beside the fire reached 40 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 28: 1.8 times the WHO daily 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 · 464Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 5,459 haNkhotakota7 October 2019 · 34 days · 2 km away
- 4,962 haNkhotakota8 October 2017 · 19 days · 2 km away
- 6,035 haNkhotakota22 September 2020 · 24 days · 3 km away
- 5,598 haNkhotakota8 October 2018 · 19 days · 25 km away
- 4,896 haNkhotakota1 November 2021 · 15 days · 29 km away
- 4,499 haNkhata Bay14 October 2017 · 14 days · 33 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Mzimba fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 5 October 2026 to 31 October 2026 (27 days). The perimeter dates it from 5 October 2026 to 29 October 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 21,828 hectares (218.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mzimba (11,751 ha, 1.1 %); Nkhotakota (10,221 ha, 2.4 %).
- Is the Mzimba fire still active?
- Yes: satellites detected fire on 31 Oct 2026, 11:02 UTC. Check the emergency service for the official status.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.2 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, class Very high.
- 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
History of this page · 3 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Area: 20,278 → 21,556 ha.
- Area: 13,654 → 20,278 ha.
- Name: Nkhotakota → Mzimba.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 12 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 5 October 2026 to 29 October 2026. 464 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: ECMWF IFS model, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives.
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.