How long did the Elundini fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 20 August 2019 and 25 August 2019: 6 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 3,810 hectares (38.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Senqu (1,976 ha, 0.3 %); Elundini (1,850 ha, 0.4 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 18.8 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 62 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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.

ZA · South Africa · 2019-08-20 → 2019-08-25

Elundini fire, August 2019 Senqu, Elundini

Out · last detection 25 Aug 2019, 23:22 UTC

The fire started on 20 August 2019 in Elundini, South Africa, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,810 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 66th largest in Eastern Cape since 2016 (of 185 with a page). Number 39 in South Africa in 2019, of 130.

The power measured by the satellite is low (28.7 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: Elundini · 2017 Elundini · 2023 Sakhisizwe · 2020 Senqu · 2025

Burnt area: 3,810ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 6days; 20 Aug 2019 – 25 Aug 2019
Municipalities hit: 2; municipalities
Started on: 20 Aug; 2019
Heat detections: 118; in a single hotspot: 29 MW
Danger at start: 17; Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power: 116MW; detected power per day, on average

Play back 25 Aug 2019

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Aug25 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

20 Aug 21 Aug 22 Aug 23 Aug 24 Aug 25 Aug

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

The weather it burned in

19°high

62km/h · peak gust

11%lowest humidity

It had gone 16 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.8 mm on 28 Aug.

This area had burned before

14% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 550 ha in 2017.

550 ha Elundini fire, August 2017 2,112 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 2.4% of the area of London (38 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

Senqu

1,976 ha reached on 20 Aug

0.3 %
Elundini where it started

1,850 ha reached on 20 Aug

0.4 %

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)
20 Aug	11.2 °C	32 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 17
21 Aug	16.1 °C	20 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
22 Aug	16.8 °C	13 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
23 Aug	17.9 °C	11 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
24 Aug	18.2 °C	16 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
25 Aug	18.8 °C	11 %	62 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
26 Aug after	18.6 °C	8 %	65 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
27 Aug after	18.2 °C	10 %	53 km/h	0.2 mm	Very high 42
28 Aug after	11.0 °C	36 %	30 km/h	1.8 mm	Low 7

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 13 Aug 2019

After · 1 Sept 2019

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 South Africa ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Elundini fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 20 August 2019 and 25 August 2019: 6 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 3,810 hectares (38.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Senqu (1,976 ha, 0.3 %); Elundini (1,850 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 18.8 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 62 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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

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. This is not an emergency service: if there is a fire now, call 10177 · 112.

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 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.

Where it burned