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Epukiro fire, 9 September 2023 Otjinene, Epukiro

Out · last detection 21 Sept 2023, 12:09 UTC

The fire started on 9 September 2023 in Epukiro, Namibia, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 19,876 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 2th largest in Omaheke since 2016 (of 61 with a page). Number 5 in Namibia in 2023, of 111.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Epukiro · 2023Tsumkwe · 2023Otjinene · 2016Epukiro · 2023

Burnt area
19,876ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
13days
9 Sept 2023 – 21 Sept 2023
Municipalities hit
2
constituencies
Started on
9 Sept
2023
Heat detections
910
in a single hotspot: 93 MW
Danger at start
55
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
728MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Sept21 Sept
21 Sept 2023

How it evolved, day by day

9 Sept 2023 · 117 MW · 44 10 Sept 2023 · 754 MW · 101 11 Sept 2023 · 711 MW · 88 12 Sept 2023 · 2,757 MW · 191 13 Sept 2023 · 1,842 MW · 136 14 Sept 2023 · 990 MW · 129 15 Sept 2023 · 787 MW · 87 16 Sept 2023 · 424 MW · 38 17 Sept 2023 · 819 MW · 52 18 Sept 2023 · 141 MW · 16 19 Sept 2023 · 45 MW · 18 20 Sept 2023 · 32 MW · 5 21 Sept 2023 · 45 MW · 5
9 Sept 11 Sept 12 Sept 13 Sept 15 Sept 17 Sept 19 Sept 21 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

35°high
50km/h · peak gust
8%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?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 13% of the area of London (199 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

  1. Otjinene
    18,599 ha reached on 9 Sept
    2.9 %
  2. Epukiro where it started
    1,338 ha reached on 9 Sept
    0.1 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
9 Sept 35.0 °C 10 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
10 Sept 34.7 °C 11 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
11 Sept 31.6 °C 10 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
12 Sept 23.0 °C 11 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
13 Sept 29.5 °C 16 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
14 Sept 32.7 °C 15 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
15 Sept 34.0 °C 12 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
16 Sept 35.1 °C 10 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
17 Sept 32.4 °C 10 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
18 Sept 35.1 °C 8 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
19 Sept 34.7 °C 10 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
20 Sept 33.9 °C 11 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
21 Sept 34.6 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
22 Sept after 33.7 °C 14 % 29 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 53
23 Sept after 33.3 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 56
24 Sept after 34.0 °C 16 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
25 Sept after 25.8 °C 9 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
26 Sept after 26.1 °C 17 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
27 Sept after 27.8 °C 11 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
28 Sept after 31.8 °C 8 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
29 Sept after 33.5 °C 9 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
30 Sept after 35.7 °C 8 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
1 Oct after 36.5 °C 9 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 Sept 2023
After · 28 Sept 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.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 20 September 2023 the air beside the fire reached 92 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 48: 3.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak92 µg/m³
Days over the guideline13 days
PM10132 µg/m³
Optical depth1.62
89101112131415161718192021222324
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 910Every 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 Namibia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Epukiro fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 9 September 2023 to 21 September 2023 (13 days). The perimeter dates it from 10 September 2023 to 21 September 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 19,876 hectares (198.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Otjinene (18,599 ha, 2.9 %); Epukiro (1,338 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.1 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 69, class 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

History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Start date: 10 September 2023 → 9 September 2023.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

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How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 10 September 2023 to 21 September 2023. 910 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.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

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.