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Kapako fire, October 2017 Kapako

Out · last detection 20 Oct 2017, 12:46 UTC

The fire started on 15 October 2017 in Kapako, Namibia, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,758 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 66th largest in Kavango West since 2016 (of 152 with a page). Number 39 in Namibia in 2017, of 123.

Burnt area
3,758ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
15 Oct 2017 – 20 Oct 2017
Municipalities hit
1
constituencies
Started on
15 Oct
2017
Heat detections
128
in a single hotspot: 50 MW
Danger at start
46
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

20 Oct 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Oct20 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

151617181920

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 8 days 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. Kapako where it started
    3,776 ha reached on 15 Oct
    0.6 %

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)
15 Oct 35.9 °C 17 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
16 Oct 38.3 °C 10 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
17 Oct 37.4 °C 8 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
18 Oct 37.8 °C 10 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
19 Oct 37.1 °C 13 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
20 Oct 37.8 °C 11 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
21 Oct after 35.9 °C 18 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
22 Oct after 34.3 °C 24 % 45 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 54
23 Oct after 31.0 °C 33 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
24 Oct after 33.1 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 42
25 Oct after 29.9 °C 37 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
26 Oct after 34.1 °C 24 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
27 Oct after 35.9 °C 14 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
28 Oct after 33.4 °C 28 % 44 km/h 0.4 mm Very high 50
29 Oct after 28.8 °C 41 % 46 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 42
30 Oct after 24.5 °C 52 % 40 km/h 0.5 mm High 31

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 8 Oct 2017
After · 27 Oct 2017

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 · 128Every 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 Kapako fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 15 October 2017 and 20 October 2017: 6 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 3,758 hectares (37.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kapako (3,776 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.3 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 62, 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.