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Kahenge fire, 8 October 2016 Kahenge

Out · last detection 13 Oct 2016, 12:21 UTC

The fire started on 8 October 2016 in Kahenge, Namibia, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,362 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 74th largest in Kavango West since 2016 (of 152 with a page). Number 56 in Namibia in 2016, of 108.

Burnt area
3,362ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
8 Oct 2016 – 12 Oct 2016
Municipalities hit
1
constituencies
Started on
8 Oct
2016
Heat detections
140
in a single hotspot: 39 MW
Danger at start
50
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

13 Oct 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Oct12 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

910111213

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
42km/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.

What happened to each town

  1. Kahenge where it started
    3,385 ha reached on 9 Oct
    0.4 %

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 Oct 32.5 °C 16 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
9 Oct 34.6 °C 9 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
10 Oct 36.8 °C 8 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
11 Oct 38.4 °C 8 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
12 Oct 38.5 °C 12 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
13 Oct after 38.4 °C 11 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
14 Oct after 38.6 °C 9 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
15 Oct after 38.3 °C 9 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
16 Oct after 38.5 °C 8 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
17 Oct after 38.4 °C 8 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
18 Oct after 39.6 °C 8 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
19 Oct after 37.3 °C 12 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 70
20 Oct after 37.1 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
21 Oct after 37.3 °C 14 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
22 Oct after 37.0 °C 14 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Oct 2016
After · 19 Oct 2016

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 · 140Every 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 Kahenge fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 8 October 2016 and 12 October 2016: 5 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 3,362 hectares (33.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kahenge (3,385 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.5 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 63, 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.