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Impendle fire, August 2020 Impendle, Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma

Out · last detection 11 Aug 2020, 12:05 UTC

The fire started on 8 August 2020 in Impendle, South Africa, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,517 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 49th largest in KwaZulu-Natal since 2016 (of 171 with a page). Number 31 in South Africa in 2020, of 95.

Burnt area
3,517ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
8 Aug 2020 – 11 Aug 2020
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
8 Aug
2020
Heat detections
105
in a single hotspot: 54 MW
Danger at start
22
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

11 Aug 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Aug11 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

891011

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

The weather it burned in

23°high
60km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.5 mm on 18 Aug.

This area had burned before

46% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 301 ha in 2017, 1,019 ha in 2018, 578 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,633 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Impendle where it started
    2,343 ha reached on 8 Aug
    1.4 %
  2. Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma
    1,182 ha reached on 9 Aug
    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)
8 Aug 20.3 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
9 Aug 20.8 °C 28 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
10 Aug 18.9 °C 21 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
11 Aug 23.1 °C 12 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
12 Aug after 21.5 °C 14 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
13 Aug after 20.8 °C 18 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
14 Aug after 22.0 °C 18 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
15 Aug after 21.8 °C 15 % 85 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
16 Aug after 16.8 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.7 mm High 26
17 Aug after 18.2 °C 13 % 56 km/h 0.7 mm High 32
18 Aug after 15.1 °C 17 % 50 km/h 1.5 mm Moderate 17

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Aug 2020
After · 18 Aug 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 · 105Every 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 8 August 2020 and 11 August 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 3,517 hectares (35.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Impendle (2,343 ha, 1.4 %); Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma (1,182 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 23.1 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 60 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.