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Emakhazeni fire, August 2016 Emakhazeni

Out · last detection 4 Sept 2016, 11:09 UTC

The fire started on 29 August 2016 in Emakhazeni, South Africa, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,132 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 85th largest in Mpumalanga since 2016 (of 214 with a page). Number 37 in South Africa in 2016, of 71.

Burnt area
3,132ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
29 Aug 2016 – 5 Sept 2016
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
29 Aug
2016
Heat detections
141
in a single hotspot: 171 MW
Danger at start
33
High · FWI index
Energy released
3.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

4 Sept 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Aug5 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

29303124

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

The weather it burned in

25°high
44km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.2 mm on 10 Sept.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Emakhazeni where it started
    3,149 ha reached on 29 Aug
    0.7 %

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)
29 Aug 24.9 °C 9 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
30 Aug 24.9 °C 10 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
31 Aug 22.2 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
1 Sept 20.9 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
2 Sept 21.6 °C 21 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
3 Sept 22.5 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
4 Sept 21.1 °C 27 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
5 Sept 24.8 °C 15 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
6 Sept after 25.6 °C 16 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
7 Sept after 26.9 °C 16 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
8 Sept after 25.2 °C 25 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
9 Sept after 29.3 °C 13 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
10 Sept after 13.2 °C 68 % 39 km/h 1.2 mm Low 9

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Aug 2016
After · 12 Sept 2016

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 · 141Every 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 Emakhazeni fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 29 August 2016 and 5 September 2016: 8 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 3,132 hectares (31.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Emakhazeni (3,149 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 24.9 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, class 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.