Zomba fire, October 2016 Machinga, Zomba
The fire started on 1 October 2016 in Zomba, Malawi, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,166 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 75th largest in Southern Region since 2016 (of 104 with a page). Number 56 in Malawi in 2016, of 78.
The power measured by the satellite is low (23.2 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
- 1,166ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 11days
- 1 Oct 2016 – 11 Oct 2016
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 1 Oct
- 2016
- Heat detections
- 58
- in a single hotspot: 23 MW
- Energy released
- 537MW
- 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
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
701 ha reached on 2 Oct0.2 %
-
Zomba where it started471 ha reached on 1 Oct0.2 %
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.
Detections table · 58Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 2,804 haMachinga25 September 2017 · 11 days · 1 km away
- 2,322 haZombaAugust 2017 · 11 days · 9 km away
- 1,703 haMachinga9 September 2025 · 6 days · 29 km away
- 1,832 haMachingaSeptember 2021 · 2 days · 30 km away
- 3,110 haMachinga15 September 2017 · 4 days · 31 km away
- 1,961 haMachingaMay 2019 · 7 days · 31 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Zomba fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 October 2016 and 11 October 2016: 11 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 1,166 hectares (11.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Machinga (701 ha, 0.2 %); Zomba (471 ha, 0.2 %).
- 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.