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Rumphi fire, 30 August 2025 Rumphi

Out · last detection 2 Sept 2025, 22:28 UTC

The fire started on 30 August 2025 in Rumphi, Malawi, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,518 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 57th largest in Northern Region since 2016 (of 418 with a page). Number 12 in Malawi in 2025, of 76.

Burnt area
3,518ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
30 Aug 2025 – 2 Sept 2025
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
30 Aug
2025
Heat detections
155
in a single hotspot: 58 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

2 Sept 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Aug2 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

303112

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

The weather it burned in

22°high
53km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 50 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

49% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 763 ha in 2018, 19 ha in 2019, 1,377 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,727 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Rumphi where it started
    3,539 ha reached on 30 Aug
    0.8 %

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.

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)
30 Aug 20.3 °C 24 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
31 Aug 20.8 °C 21 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
1 Sept 22.2 °C 21 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
2 Sept 20.6 °C 32 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
3 Sept after 21.4 °C 29 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
4 Sept after 22.0 °C 19 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
5 Sept after 22.1 °C 21 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
6 Sept after 23.5 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
7 Sept after 22.8 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
8 Sept after 24.0 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
9 Sept after 23.4 °C 27 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
10 Sept after 22.3 °C 33 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
11 Sept after 23.3 °C 24 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
12 Sept after 22.8 °C 22 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 33

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

Before · 23 Aug 2025
After · 9 Sept 2025

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 · Copernicus

On 2 September 2025 the air beside the fire reached 38 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 24: 1.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak38 µg/m³
Days over the guideline8 days
PM1040 µg/m³
Optical depth0.47
2829303112345
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 155Every 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 30 August 2025 and 2 September 2025: 4 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 3,518 hectares (35.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Rumphi (3,539 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 22.2 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, 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

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.