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MW · Malawi · →

Rumphi fire, 22 September 2018 Rumphi

Out · last detection 23 Sept 2018, 23:16 UTC

The fire started on 22 September 2018 in Rumphi, Malawi, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,779 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 151th largest in Northern Region since 2016 (of 418 with a page). Number 24 in Malawi in 2018, of 73.

Burnt area
1,779ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
2days
22 Sept 2018 – 23 Sept 2018
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
22 Sept
2018
Heat detections
50
in a single hotspot: 101 MW
Energy released
1.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

23 Sept 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Sept23 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

2223

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

This area had burned before

82% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,162 ha in 2016, 642 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,457 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Rumphi where it started
    1,788 ha reached on 22 Sept
    0.4 %

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.

Before · 15 Sept 2018
After · 30 Sept 2018

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 · 50Every 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 Malawi ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Rumphi fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 22 September 2018 and 23 September 2018: 2 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 1,779 hectares (17.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Rumphi (1,788 ha, 0.4 %).
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.

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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.