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Kapako fire, 8 October 2018 Kapako

Out · last detection 17 Oct 2018, 12:59 UTC

The fire started on 8 October 2018 in Kapako, Namibia, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,923 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 88th largest in Kavango West since 2016 (of 152 with a page). Number 46 in Namibia in 2018, of 83.

Burnt area
2,923ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
8 Oct 2018 – 17 Oct 2018
Municipalities hit
1
constituencies
Started on
8 Oct
2018
Heat detections
84
in a single hotspot: 34 MW
Danger at start
61
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
764MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

17 Oct 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Oct17 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

8910111213141617

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
49km/h · peak gust
8%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.2 mm on 21 Oct.

This area had burned before

52% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,082 ha in 2016, 482 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Kapako where it started
    2,934 ha reached on 7 Oct
    0.5 %

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 33.6 °C 10 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
9 Oct 33.6 °C 10 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
10 Oct 34.3 °C 10 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
11 Oct 35.5 °C 8 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
12 Oct 36.0 °C 9 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
13 Oct 36.9 °C 9 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
14 Oct 35.5 °C 10 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
15 Oct 35.7 °C 8 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
16 Oct 36.8 °C 9 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
17 Oct 37.8 °C 10 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
18 Oct after 37.5 °C 8 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
19 Oct after 37.6 °C 14 % 29 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 54
20 Oct after 37.2 °C 14 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
21 Oct after 35.1 °C 23 % 43 km/h 1.2 mm Very high 46

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Oct 2018
After · 24 Oct 2018

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 · 84Every 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 8 October 2018 and 17 October 2018: 10 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 2,923 hectares (29.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kapako (2,934 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.8 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 72, class Very 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.