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Kahenge fire, September 2021 Kahenge

Out · last detection 2 Oct 2021, 23:01 UTC

The fire started on 25 September 2021 in Kahenge, Namibia, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,930 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 23th largest in Kavango West since 2016 (of 152 with a page). Number 41 in Namibia in 2021, of 175.

Burnt area
5,930ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
25 Sept 2021 – 2 Oct 2021
Municipalities hit
1
constituencies
Started on
25 Sept
2021
Heat detections
144
in a single hotspot: 60 MW
Danger at start
64
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
1.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

2 Oct 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 25 Sept2 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

25262728293012

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
47km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

86% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,196 ha in 2016, 2,493 ha in 2017, 135 ha in 2018, 120 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,117 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Kahenge where it started
    5,953 ha reached on 25 Sept
    0.7 %

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)
25 Sept 34.7 °C 10 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
26 Sept 34.7 °C 10 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
27 Sept 35.3 °C 10 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
28 Sept 35.8 °C 11 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
29 Sept 35.3 °C 13 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
30 Sept 35.8 °C 11 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
1 Oct 33.3 °C 11 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
2 Oct 32.4 °C 9 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
3 Oct after 32.7 °C 11 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
4 Oct after 34.1 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
5 Oct after 34.5 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
6 Oct after 34.0 °C 22 % 40 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 49
7 Oct after 33.7 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 42
8 Oct after 34.0 °C 27 % 25 km/h 0.9 mm High 30
9 Oct after 36.6 °C 14 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
10 Oct after 36.3 °C 7 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
11 Oct after 34.8 °C 17 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
12 Oct after 34.8 °C 18 % 44 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 · 18 Sept 2021
After · 9 Oct 2021

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 · 144Every 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 25 September 2021 and 2 October 2021: 8 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 5,930 hectares (59.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kahenge (5,953 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.8 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 64, 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.