Impendle fire, July 2024 Impendle, Mpofana
The fire started on 29 July 2024 in Impendle, South Africa, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,754 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 42th largest in KwaZulu-Natal since 2016 (of 171 with a page). Number 44 in South Africa in 2024, of 121.
- Burnt area
- 3,754ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 4days
- 29 Jul 2024 – 1 Aug 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 29 Jul
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 163
- in a single hotspot: 227 MW
- Danger at start
- 6
- Low · FWI index
- Energy released
- 2.3GW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.7 mm on 5 Aug.
This area had burned before
93% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,269 ha in 2016, 1,022 ha in 2017, 1,436 ha in 2019, 1,398 ha in 2020, 67 ha in 2021, 1,618 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,497 ha that had burned before.
- 1,489 ha Mpofana fire, September 2022 5,109 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,371 ha Impendle fire, July 2020 9,087 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,022 ha Impendle fire, June 2017 4,254 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 216 ha Impendle fire, September 2019 8,607 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 215 ha Impendle fire, July 2019 2,286 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 129 ha Impendle fire, September 2022 3,461 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 28 ha Inkosi Langalibalele fire, July 2020 8,310 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Impendle where it started2,056 ha reached on 29 Jul1.3 %
-
1,711 ha reached on 29 Jul1.0 %
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 Jul | 13.2 °C | 17 % | 30 km/h | 2.1 mm | Low 6 |
| 30 Jul | 14.1 °C | 20 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 31 Jul | 13.1 °C | 30 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 1 Aug | 14.9 °C | 38 % | 36 km/h | 0.6 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 2 Aug after | 16.6 °C | 24 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 3 Aug after | 19.0 °C | 17 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 4 Aug after | 19.2 °C | 30 % | 62 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 5 Aug after | 14.8 °C | 23 % | 25 km/h | 2.7 mm | Very low 4 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 1 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 38 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 22: 1.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 163Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 9,087 haImpendle18 July 2020 · 4 days · 6 km away
- 8,607 haImpendleSeptember 2019 · 4 days · 7 km away
- 8,310 haInkosi Langalibalele15 July 2020 · 4 days · 8 km away
- 5,535 haInkosi Langalibalele27 July 2021 · 2 days · 15 km away
- 5,429 haImpendle23 July 2020 · 4 days · 15 km away
- 5,940 haInkosi LangalibaleleJuly 2019 · 2 days · 26 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Impendle fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 29 July 2024 and 1 August 2024: 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 3,754 hectares (37.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Impendle (2,056 ha, 1.3 %); Mpofana (1,711 ha, 1.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 14.9 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 16, class Moderate.
- 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
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.