Rumphi fire, 24 October 2026 Rumphi
The fire started on 24 October 2026 in Rumphi, Malawi, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,139 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 337th largest in Northern Region since 2016 (of 427 with a page). Number 88 in Malawi in 2026, of 108.
The power measured by the satellite is low (16.2 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Rumphi · 2025Rumphi · 2024Rumphi · 2019Rumphi · 2017
- Burnt area
- 1,139ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 4days
- 24 Oct 2026 – 27 Oct 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 24 Oct
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 24
- in a single hotspot: 16 MW
- Danger at start
- 20
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 40MW
- 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 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.3 mm on 30 Oct.
This area had burned before
81% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 14 ha in 2016, 98 ha in 2017, 119 ha in 2019, 59 ha in 2022, 68 ha in 2023, 205 ha in 2024, 653 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 924 ha that had burned before.
- 653 ha Rumphi fire, October 2025 1,194 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 205 ha Rumphi fire, July 2024 4,244 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 119 ha Rumphi fire, August 2019 1,950 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 98 ha Rumphi fire, September 2017 5,896 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 68 ha Rumphi fire, October 2023 1,023 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 59 ha Rumphi fire, October 2022 2,037 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 7 ha Rumphi fire, August 2016 2,843 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 7 ha Rumphi fire, September 2016 1,577 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 started1,145 ha reached on 24 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.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2025Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 24 Oct | 25.0 °C | 37 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 25 Oct | 24.1 °C | 44 % | 46 km/h | 0.3 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 26 Oct | 24.2 °C | 49 % | 44 km/h | 0.6 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 27 Oct | 25.2 °C | 37 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 28 Oct after | 25.6 °C | 39 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 29 Oct after | 26.0 °C | 37 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 30 Oct after | 24.0 °C | 53 % | 39 km/h | 2.3 mm | Very low 4 |
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 24 October 2026 the air beside the fire reached 67 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 39: 2.6 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 · 24Every 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 haRumphi8 September 2017 · 11 days · 6 km away
- 5,477 haRumphi23 July 2026 · 6 days · 7 km away
- 11,230 haRumphi3 August 2019 · 7 days · 10 km away
- 7,693 haChitipa28 July 2016 · 9 days · 23 km away
- 5,034 haRumphi 14 October 2026 · 16 days · 26 km away
- 4,941 haMafinga12 October 2017 · 13 days · 33 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Rumphi fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 24 October 2026 to 27 October 2026 (4 days). The perimeter dates it from 25 October 2026 to 27 October 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 1,139 hectares (11.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Rumphi (1,145 ha, 0.2 %).
- Is the Rumphi fire still active?
- No fire detections since 27 Oct 2026, 12:19 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 25.2 °C, humidity dropped to 37 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 20, class Moderate.
- 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 · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 28 October 2026.
- Page published (1,139 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.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 25 October 2026 to 27 October 2026. 24 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.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.