How long did the Eengodi fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 21 September 2017 and 24 September 2017: 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 3,703 hectares (37.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Eengodi (3,714 ha, 0.5 %); Okankolo (4 ha, 0.0 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 37.3 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 71, class Very extreme.

Where does this data come from?

From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Namibia (OCHA COD-AB). It is not an official report.

NA · Namibia · 2017-09-21 → 2017-09-24

Eengodi fire, September 2017 Eengodi, Okankolo

Out · last detection 24 Sept 2017, 12:34 UTC

The fire started on 21 September 2017 in Eengodi, Namibia, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,703 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 47th largest in Oshikoto since 2016 (of 99 with a page). Number 40 in Namibia in 2017, of 123.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Eengodi · 2025 Okankolo · 2017 Okankolo · 2017 Okankolo · 2017

Burnt area: 3,703ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 4days; 21 Sept 2017 – 24 Sept 2017
Municipalities hit: 2; constituencies
Started on: 21 Sept; 2017
Heat detections: 118; in a single hotspot: 119 MW
Danger at start: 66; Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power: 382MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Sept24 Sept

Play back 24 Sept 2017

How it evolved, day by day

21 Sept 22 Sept 23 Sept 24 Sept

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

The weather it burned in

37°high

49km/h · peak gust

10%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 2.3% of the area of London (37 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

Eengodi where it started

3,714 ha reached on 21 Sept

0.5 %
Okankolo

4 ha

0.0 %

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)
21 Sept	35.9 °C	13 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 66
22 Sept	36.1 °C	13 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 63
23 Sept	36.5 °C	11 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Very extreme 71
24 Sept	37.3 °C	10 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 64
25 Sept after	37.1 °C	9 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
26 Sept after	36.1 °C	12 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 60
27 Sept after	35.6 °C	11 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 68
28 Sept after	35.5 °C	13 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
29 Sept after	32.3 °C	17 %	54 km/h	0.6 mm	Extreme 59
30 Sept after	33.3 °C	19 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 50
1 Oct after	33.9 °C	18 %	47 km/h	0.2 mm	Extreme 55
2 Oct after	34.7 °C	17 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
3 Oct after	36.7 °C	13 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 58
4 Oct after	35.0 °C	15 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 61

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 14 Sept 2017

After · 1 Oct 2017

Before After

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 · 118Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Namibia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Eengodi fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 21 September 2017 and 24 September 2017: 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 3,703 hectares (37.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Eengodi (3,714 ha, 0.5 %); Okankolo (4 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 37.3 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 71, class Very extreme.
Where does this data come from?: From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Namibia (OCHA COD-AB). 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy.

How we know this

Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 118 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
We have not matched this page with any official record.
Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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 OCHA COD-AB (Namibia Statistics Agency (NSA)) (Creative Commons Attribution for Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY-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.

Where it burned