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NA · Namibia · →

Guinas fire, September 2022 Guinas

Out · last detection 13 Sept 2022, 12:03 UTC

The fire started on 6 September 2022 in Guinas, Namibia, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,217 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 59th largest in Oshikoto since 2016 (of 99 with a page). Number 62 in Namibia in 2022, of 119.

Burnt area
3,217ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
6 Sept 2022 – 12 Sept 2022
Municipalities hit
1
constituencies
Started on
6 Sept
2022
Heat detections
138
in a single hotspot: 78 MW
Danger at start
64
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
977MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

13 Sept 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Sept12 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

678910111213

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
48km/h · peak gust
6%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

4% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 115 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Guinas where it started
    3,241 ha reached on 6 Sept
    0.3 %

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)
6 Sept 33.9 °C 9 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
7 Sept 35.1 °C 9 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
8 Sept 34.1 °C 12 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
9 Sept 34.3 °C 11 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
10 Sept 33.1 °C 9 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
11 Sept 34.9 °C 6 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
12 Sept 34.3 °C 9 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
13 Sept after 33.4 °C 7 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
14 Sept after 32.5 °C 12 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
15 Sept after 33.5 °C 10 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 70
16 Sept after 32.7 °C 9 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
17 Sept after 33.0 °C 9 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
18 Sept after 34.6 °C 9 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
19 Sept after 33.1 °C 7 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
20 Sept after 28.7 °C 9 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
21 Sept after 31.7 °C 8 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
22 Sept after 33.7 °C 6 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 30 Aug 2022
After · 19 Sept 2022

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 · 138Every 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 Guinas fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 6 September 2022 and 12 September 2022: 7 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 3,217 hectares (32.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Guinas (3,241 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.1 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 67, 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

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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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.