Rumphi fire, 18 July 2026 Rumphi
The fire started on 18 July 2026 in Rumphi, Malawi, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,351 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 238th largest in Northern Region since 2016 (of 420 with a page). Number 58 in Malawi in 2026, of 99.
The power measured by the satellite is low (30.0 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
- Burnt area
- 1,351ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 3days
- 18 Jul 2026 – 20 Jul 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 18 Jul
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 29
- in a single hotspot: 30 MW
- Energy released
- 409MW
- sum of detected power
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.
This area had burned before
97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 549 ha in 2016, 499 ha in 2017, 901 ha in 2018, 104 ha in 2021, 5 ha in 2022, 1,125 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,312 ha that had burned before.
- 1,125 ha Rumphi fire, July 2024 1,523 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 888 ha Rumphi fire, September 2018 1,779 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 499 ha Rumphi fire, September 2017 4,225 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 317 ha Rumphi fire, August 2016 2,843 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 232 ha Rumphi fire, September 2016 1,454 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 104 ha Rumphi fire, August 2021 1,544 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 13 ha Chitipa fire, August 2018 3,635 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5 ha Rumphi fire, August 2022 1,757 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Rumphi where it started1,358 ha reached on 18 Jul0.3 %
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.
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 16 July 2026 the air beside the fire reached 23 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 16: 1.1 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 · 29Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 5,896 haRumphi15 September 2017 · 4 days · 8 km away
- 5,477 haRumphi23 July 2026 · 6 days · 8 km away
- 11,230 haRumphi3 August 2019 · 7 days · 11 km away
- 7,693 haChitipa29 July 2016 · 6 days · 16 km away
- 7,699 haMafinga15 October 2017 · 12 days · 35 km away
- 11,134 haMafinga11 October 2017 · 11 days · 37 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Rumphi fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 18 July 2026 and 20 July 2026: 3 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 1,351 hectares (13.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Rumphi (1,358 ha, 0.3 %).
- 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.
Report an error
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.