Nkhata Bay fire, 5 October 2026 Nkhata Bay, Nkhotakota, Mzimba
The fire started on 5 October 2026 in Nkhata Bay, Malawi, and satellites saw it burning for 30 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 250,418 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 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:
It is the largest fire in Northern Region since 2016 (of 426 with a page). The largest in Malawi in 2026, of 108.
Compare with…
Is it still active?
Satellites detected fire on 3 Nov 2026, 23:35 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
- 250,418ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 30days
- 5 Oct 2026 – 3 Nov 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- districts
- Started on
- 5 Oct
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 3,241
- in a single hotspot: 249 MW
- Danger at start
- 1
- Very low · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 1.7GW
- 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 one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
3% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,271 ha in 2016, 3,382 ha in 2017, 37 ha in 2018, 1,525 ha in 2019, 1,959 ha in 2020, 432 ha in 2021, 91 ha in 2022, 3,769 ha in 2023, 3,950 ha in 2024, 5,920 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,522 ha that had burned before.
- 5,920 ha Nkhata Bay fire, October 2025 123,561 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,950 ha Nkhata Bay fire, October 2024 63,964 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,768 ha Nkhata Bay fire, October 2023 8,940 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,159 ha Nkhata Bay fire, October 2017 4,499 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,271 ha Nkhata Bay fire, October 2016 8,205 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 867 ha Nkhata Bay fire, October 2019 1,055 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 861 ha Nkhata Bay fire, October 2020 1,216 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 713 ha Nkhata Bay fire, October 2020 1,057 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
-
Nkhata Bay where it started230,186 ha reached on 5 Oct55 %
-
20,315 ha reached on 6 Oct4.7 %
-
1,658 ha reached on 13 Oct0.2 %
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 | 27.1 °C | 53 % | 31 km/h | 1.9 mm | Very low 1 |
| 6 Oct | 27.6 °C | 48 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 4 |
| 7 Oct | 28.7 °C | 48 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 7 |
| 8 Oct | 29.5 °C | 41 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 8 |
| 9 Oct | 28.7 °C | 43 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 10 Oct | 29.0 °C | 40 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 11 |
| 11 Oct | 28.0 °C | 46 % | 37 km/h | 3.2 mm | Very low 2 |
| 12 Oct | 27.7 °C | 45 % | 35 km/h | 1.7 mm | Very low 3 |
| 13 Oct | 28.4 °C | 47 % | 32 km/h | 0.1 mm | Low 7 |
| 14 Oct | 27.7 °C | 50 % | 34 km/h | 1.2 mm | Low 5 |
| 15 Oct | 28.2 °C | 43 % | 31 km/h | 1.6 mm | Very low 5 |
| 16 Oct | 28.3 °C | 42 % | 34 km/h | 1.4 mm | Low 7 |
| 17 Oct | 28.2 °C | 38 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 18 Oct | 28.2 °C | 44 % | 32 km/h | 2.1 mm | Very low 4 |
| 19 Oct | 29.0 °C | 49 % | 31 km/h | 1.4 mm | Low 5 |
| 20 Oct | 30.6 °C | 35 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 21 Oct | 32.0 °C | 37 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 22 Oct | 33.5 °C | 25 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 23 Oct | 32.9 °C | 32 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 24 Oct | 31.2 °C | 35 % | 34 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 22 |
| 25 Oct | 28.8 °C | 49 % | 38 km/h | 1.8 mm | Low 7 |
| 26 Oct | 29.5 °C | 46 % | 36 km/h | 1.7 mm | Low 6 |
| 27 Oct | 30.2 °C | 41 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 28 Oct | 31.3 °C | 33 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 29 Oct | 31.3 °C | 37 % | 39 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 22 |
| 30 Oct | 27.8 °C | 58 % | 35 km/h | 5.8 mm | Very low 2 |
| 31 Oct | 27.5 °C | 57 % | 35 km/h | 1.0 mm | Very low 4 |
| 1 Nov | 28.5 °C | 50 % | 27 km/h | 0.1 mm | Low 8 |
| 2 Nov | 28.9 °C | 49 % | 31 km/h | 1.1 mm | Low 8 |
| 3 Nov | 30.9 °C | 39 % | 28 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 4 Nov after | 30.7 °C | 45 % | 33 km/h | 0.4 mm | Moderate 15 |
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 12 October 2026 the air beside the fire reached 38 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 25: 1.7 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 · 3,241Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 123,561 haNkhata Bay9 October 2025 · 30 days · 5 km away
- 20,590 haNkhata Bay16 October 2020 · 22 days · 6 km away
- 14,277 haNkhata Bay11 October 2022 · 38 days · 6 km away
- 14,115 haNkhata Bay7 October 2019 · 30 days · 8 km away
- 63,964 haNkhata Bay18 October 2024 · 16 days · 9 km away
- 64,817 haNkhata Bay2 October 2023 · 31 days · 16 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Nkhata Bay fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 October 2026 and 3 November 2026: 30 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 250,418 hectares (2,504.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Nkhata Bay (230,186 ha, 55 %); Nkhotakota (20,315 ha, 4.7 %); Mzimba (1,658 ha, 0.2 %).
- Is the Nkhata Bay fire still active?
- Yes: satellites detected fire on 3 Nov 2026, 23:35 UTC. Check the emergency service for the official status.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 33.5 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 22, class 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 · 12 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Area: 236,903 → 245,707 ha.
- Area: 192,157 → 236,903 ha.
- Area: 141,799 → 192,157 ha.
- The page “Nkhata Bay, 21 October 2026” has been merged into this one: it was the same fire.
- Area: 37,274 → 141,799 ha.
- Name: Nkhotakota → Nkhata Bay.
- The page “Nkhata Bay, 14 October 2026” has been merged into this one: it was the same fire.
- Area: 35,472 → 37,274 ha.
- Area: 32,930 → 35,472 ha.
- Area: 29,637 → 32,930 ha.
- Area: 28,432 → 29,637 ha.
- Area: 27,789 → 28,432 ha.
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; 31 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 3,241 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.