The fire started on 9 October 2025 in Nkhata Bay, Malawi, and satellites saw it burning for 30 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 121,322 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
This page is probably a fire complex, not a single fire. GWIS merges into one perimeter the fires that touch over weeks, which in large burning seasons can join dozens of separate fires. The total area is reliable; the origin and dates refer to the whole complex.
Other fire pages in the same area and on the same dates:
The largest in Malawi in 2025, of 76.
GWIS near-real-time perimeter, from the layer that changed in August 2025: this fire is not compared with fires from earlier years, because since then the GWIS layer gives more and larger perimeters.
Union of 11 GWIS (Copernicus) perimeters: overlapping areas count once.
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
9 Oct 2025 to 7 Nov 2025: first and last day with fire on the page.
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.
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 533 MW.
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
Total radiative power on 27 October 2025; hotspots that day: 252.
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 3.
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
High of 29.5 °C and minimum humidity of 31% on 26 October 2025; gusts of 50 km/h on 3 November 2025.
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
Estimated residents inside the perimeter and 210 ha of built-up area (100 m grid, epoch 2025).
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.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Every night a snapshot of what the page shows is saved. If anything changes, it appears in the list as a log entry.
A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-10-09 | 31 | 333 | 26.5 | 19.9 | 49 | 11.8 | 39.2 | 0.2 | 15.7 | moderado | 1 |
| 2025-10-10 | 14 | 114 | 26.6 | 20.4 | 49 | 12 | 37.1 | 0 | 16.1 | moderado | 1 |
| 2025-10-11 | 22 | 184 | 28 | 19.6 | 43 | 13 | 33.1 | 0 | 18.2 | moderado | 1 |
| 2025-10-12 | 54 | 617 | 27 | 20.2 | 43 | 12.2 | 30.6 | 0 | 18.1 | moderado | 1 |
| 2025-10-13 | 32 | 337 | 27.3 | 21 | 40 | 13.4 | 34.2 | 0 | 19.8 | moderado | 1 |
| 2025-10-14 | 45 | 397 | 26.4 | 20.3 | 45 | 13.8 | 35.3 | 0 | 20.4 | moderado | 1 |
| 2025-10-15 | 79 | 1,459 | 25.9 | 20 | 46 | 11.9 | 31 | 0 | 19.7 | moderado | 1 |
| 2025-10-16 | 87 | 1,796 | 28 | 18.8 | 32 | 11.9 | 30.2 | 0 | 22.8 | alto | 1 |
| 2025-10-17 | 52 | 362 | 27.4 | 20.4 | 42 | 12.3 | 32.8 | 0 | 23.2 | alto | 1 |
| 2025-10-18 | 84 | 932 | 26.1 | 21.4 | 41 | 14.6 | 36.7 | 0 | 24.7 | alto | 1 |
| 2025-10-19 | 123 | 1,386 | 27.5 | 20 | 33 | 11.6 | 29.9 | 0 | 23.3 | alto | 1 |
| 2025-10-20 | 232 | 5,034 | 28 | 20.7 | 38 | 13 | 32 | 0.5 | 24.5 | alto | 1 |
| 2025-10-21 | 78 | 1,976 | 27.4 | 21.5 | 52 | 14.5 | 36.7 | 0.7 | 17.5 | moderado | 1 |
| 2025-10-22 | 68 | 777 | 27.7 | 21.4 | 47 | 13.4 | 33.8 | 0.7 | 17.1 | moderado | 1 |
| 2025-10-23 | 86 | 938 | 26.6 | 20.5 | 51 | 12 | 29.9 | 0.5 | 17.2 | moderado | 1 |
| 2025-10-24 | 165 | 2,302 | 26.9 | 20 | 44 | 12 | 31.7 | 0 | 19.4 | moderado | 1 |
| 2025-10-25 | 295 | 4,601 | 28.4 | 20.5 | 33 | 12.4 | 32 | 0 | 24.4 | alto | 1 |
| 2025-10-26 | 184 | 2,925 | 29.5 | 19.4 | 31 | 12.1 | 31 | 0 | 26.5 | alto | 1 |
| 2025-10-27 | 252 | 7,003 | 29.1 | 20.6 | 43 | 12.5 | 36 | 0 | 25.9 | alto | 1 |
| 2025-10-28 | 211 | 4,901 | 29.1 | 21.9 | 42 | 12.6 | 34.2 | 0 | 26.3 | alto | 1 |
| 2025-10-29 | 294 | 3,507 | 28.5 | 23 | 40 | 13.7 | 34.6 | 0.1 | 27.3 | alto | 1 |
| 2025-10-30 | 293 | 6,140 | 28.6 | 21.4 | 37 | 12.5 | 33.5 | 0 | 26.8 | alto | 1 |
| 2025-10-31 | 284 | 3,785 | 28.9 | 22 | 48 | 12.7 | 38.9 | 0 | 24.6 | alto | 1 |
| 2025-11-01 | 259 | 4,455 | 28.9 | 20.9 | 35 | 13 | 34.2 | 0 | 26.1 | alto | 1 |
| 2025-11-02 | 181 | 2,875 | 29 | 21 | 31 | 13.7 | 35.3 | 0 | 28.7 | alto | 1 |
| 2025-11-03 | 334 | 3,875 | 27.9 | 23 | 51 | 14.2 | 50 | 0 | 24.7 | alto | 1 |
| 2025-11-04 | 345 | 4,578 | 26.8 | 22.2 | 54 | 13.5 | 40 | 0.8 | 16.6 | moderado | 1 |
| 2025-11-05 | 240 | 2,468 | 28.8 | 21.4 | 48 | 11 | 33.1 | 0 | 19.1 | moderado | 1 |
| 2025-11-06 | 112 | 1,484 | 28.4 | 21.8 | 49 | 11.5 | 35.6 | 0.1 | 20 | moderado | 1 |
| 2025-11-07 | 83 | 601 | 27.5 | 20.6 | 56 | 14.3 | 36 | 5.9 | 4.7 | muy_bajo | 1 |
| 2025-11-08 | 0 | 0 | 27.5 | 20.2 | 58 | 9.1 | 31.7 | 12.7 | 0.6 | muy_bajo | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: GWIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0), GHSL (JRC). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 12.7 mm on 8 Nov.
74% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 47,481 ha in 2016, 15,563 ha in 2017, 27,890 ha in 2018, 31,808 ha in 2019, 35,787 ha in 2020, 19,220 ha in 2021, 38,213 ha in 2022, 61,354 ha in 2023, 55,480 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 89,559 ha that had burned before.
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.
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.
Inside the perimeter there were about 210 hectares of built-up land and about 31,000 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
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9 Oct | 26.5 °C | 49 % | 39 km/h | 0.2 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 10 Oct | 26.6 °C | 49 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 11 Oct | 28.0 °C | 43 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 12 Oct | 27.0 °C | 43 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 13 Oct | 27.3 °C | 40 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 14 Oct | 26.4 °C | 45 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 15 Oct | 25.9 °C | 46 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 16 Oct | 28.0 °C | 32 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 17 Oct | 27.4 °C | 42 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 18 Oct | 26.1 °C | 41 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 19 Oct | 27.5 °C | 33 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 20 Oct | 28.0 °C | 38 % | 32 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 24 |
| 21 Oct | 27.4 °C | 52 % | 37 km/h | 0.7 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 22 Oct | 27.7 °C | 47 % | 34 km/h | 0.7 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 23 Oct | 26.6 °C | 51 % | 30 km/h | 0.5 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 24 Oct | 26.9 °C | 44 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 25 Oct | 28.4 °C | 33 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 26 Oct | 29.5 °C | 31 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 27 Oct | 29.1 °C | 43 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 28 Oct | 29.1 °C | 42 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 29 Oct | 28.5 °C | 40 % | 35 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 27 |
| 30 Oct | 28.6 °C | 37 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 31 Oct | 28.9 °C | 48 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 1 Nov | 28.9 °C | 35 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 2 Nov | 29.0 °C | 31 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 3 Nov | 27.9 °C | 51 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 4 Nov | 26.8 °C | 54 % | 40 km/h | 0.8 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 5 Nov | 28.8 °C | 48 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 6 Nov | 28.4 °C | 49 % | 36 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 7 Nov | 27.5 °C | 56 % | 36 km/h | 5.9 mm | Very low 5 |
| 8 Nov after | 27.5 °C | 58 % | 32 km/h | 12.7 mm | Very low 1 |
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.
On 2 November 2025 the air beside the fire reached 42 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 27: 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)
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
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
RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version
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.
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.