Rumphi fire, July 2019 Rumphi
The fire started on 31 July 2019 in Rumphi, Malawi, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 11,230 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 18th largest in Northern Region since 2016 (of 426 with a page). Number 4 in Malawi in 2019, of 60.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Rumphi · 2017Rumphi · 2018Rumphi · 2017Rumphi · 2016
- Burnt area
- 11,230ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 11days
- 31 Jul 2019 – 10 Aug 2019
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 31 Jul
- 2019
- Heat detections
- 343
- in a single hotspot: 378 MW
- Danger at start
- 23
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 662MW
- 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 52 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
56% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,337 ha in 2016, 3,859 ha in 2017, 2,139 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,248 ha that had burned before.
- 2,377 ha Rumphi fire, August 2017 4,108 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,136 ha Rumphi fire, August 2018 4,664 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,480 ha Rumphi fire, September 2017 5,896 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,073 ha Rumphi fire, July 2016 1,876 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,053 ha Rumphi fire, July 2016 1,454 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,027 ha Rumphi fire, July 2016 1,389 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 137 ha Rumphi fire, July 2016 4,730 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 46 ha Rumphi fire, August 2016 2,843 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
-
Rumphi where it started10,708 ha reached on 31 Jul2.3 %
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) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Aug | 18.7 °C | 42 % | 36 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 23 |
| 2 Aug | 17.6 °C | 53 % | 53 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 23 |
| 3 Aug | 19.6 °C | 37 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 4 Aug | 20.9 °C | 33 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 5 Aug | 20.7 °C | 33 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 6 Aug | 21.3 °C | 27 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 7 Aug | 21.6 °C | 23 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 8 Aug | 22.2 °C | 26 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 9 Aug | 21.2 °C | 24 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 10 Aug | 17.9 °C | 36 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 11 Aug after | 18.0 °C | 33 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 12 Aug after | 19.9 °C | 21 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 13 Aug after | 19.1 °C | 33 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 14 Aug after | 17.3 °C | 34 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 15 Aug after | 16.6 °C | 36 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 16 Aug after | 16.3 °C | 34 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 17 Aug after | 19.1 °C | 30 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 18 Aug after | 18.5 °C | 30 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 19 Aug after | 18.4 °C | 28 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 20 Aug after | 18.9 °C | 25 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
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 · 343Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Rumphi fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 31 July 2019 to 10 August 2019 (11 days). The perimeter dates it from 3 August 2019 to 9 August 2019.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 11,230 hectares (112.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Rumphi (10,708 ha, 2.3 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 22.2 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 30, 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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 3 August 2019 to 9 August 2019. 343 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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.