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Impendle fire, 18 July 2020 Impendle, Mpofana

Out · last detection 21 Jul 2020, 11:58 UTC

The fire started on 18 July 2020 in Impendle, South Africa, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,087 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 2th largest in KwaZulu-Natal since 2016 (of 171 with a page). Number 5 in South Africa in 2020, of 95.

Burnt area
9,087ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
18 Jul 2020 – 21 Jul 2020
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
18 Jul
2020
Heat detections
280
in a single hotspot: 53 MW
Danger at start
30
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

21 Jul 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Jul21 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

18192021

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

The weather it burned in

22°high
30km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

68% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,245 ha in 2016, 2,634 ha in 2017, 2,282 ha in 2018, 1,805 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,193 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Impendle where it started
    8,602 ha reached on 18 Jul
    5.3 %
  2. Mpofana
    509 ha reached on 18 Jul
    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)
18 Jul 21.7 °C 15 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
19 Jul 18.8 °C 16 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
20 Jul 20.4 °C 16 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
21 Jul 18.3 °C 22 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
22 Jul after 17.4 °C 19 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
23 Jul after 17.2 °C 25 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
24 Jul after 17.4 °C 28 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
25 Jul after 19.1 °C 19 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
26 Jul after 17.5 °C 22 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
27 Jul after 12.8 °C 54 % 27 km/h 0.9 mm Moderate 12
28 Jul after 17.2 °C 26 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
29 Jul after 17.3 °C 27 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
30 Jul after 18.9 °C 17 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
31 Jul after 19.8 °C 22 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 28

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 11 Jul 2020
After · 28 Jul 2020

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 · 280Every 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 Impendle fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 18 July 2020 and 21 July 2020: 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 9,087 hectares (90.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Impendle (8,602 ha, 5.3 %); Mpofana (509 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 21.7 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 30 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 32, 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.