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Dihlabeng fire, September 2023 Dihlabeng

Out · last detection 2 Oct 2023, 23:15 UTC

The fire started on 30 September 2023 in Dihlabeng, South Africa, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,805 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 44th largest in Free State since 2016 (of 91 with a page). Number 88 in South Africa in 2023, of 150.

Burnt area
2,805ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
30 Sept 2023 – 2 Oct 2023
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
30 Sept
2023
Heat detections
172
in a single hotspot: 418 MW
Danger at start
49
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
3.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

2 Oct 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Sept2 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

3012

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

The weather it burned in

27°high
60km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 38.7 mm on 12 Oct.

This area had burned before

12% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 6 ha in 2018, 337 ha in 2019.

What happened to each town

  1. Dihlabeng where it started
    2,818 ha reached on 30 Sept
    0.6 %

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 Sept 27.1 °C 11 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
1 Oct 20.5 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
2 Oct 20.9 °C 33 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
3 Oct after 27.0 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
4 Oct after 29.3 °C 15 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
5 Oct after 29.5 °C 14 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
6 Oct after 29.6 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
7 Oct after 29.0 °C 12 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
8 Oct after 23.6 °C 38 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
9 Oct after 26.0 °C 27 % 65 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 41
10 Oct after 25.0 °C 27 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
11 Oct after 24.9 °C 27 % 65 km/h 0.5 mm Very high 42
12 Oct after 14.3 °C 72 % 45 km/h 38.7 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Sept 2023
After · 9 Oct 2023

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 · 172Every 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 South Africa ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Dihlabeng fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 30 September 2023 and 2 October 2023: 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 2,805 hectares (28.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Dihlabeng (2,818 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 27.1 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 60 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, class Very high.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of South Africa (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.

Emergency number: 10177 · 112

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
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy. This is not an emergency service: if there is a fire now, call 10177 · 112.

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 ADM3 (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.