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Kapako fire, October 2020 Kapako

Out · last detection 13 Oct 2020, 12:27 UTC

The fire started on 11 October 2020 in Kapako, Namibia, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,278 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 47th largest in Kavango West since 2016 (of 152 with a page). Number 45 in Namibia in 2020, of 146.

Burnt area
4,278ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
11 Oct 2020 – 13 Oct 2020
Municipalities hit
1
constituencies
Started on
11 Oct
2020
Heat detections
195
in a single hotspot: 130 MW
Danger at start
65
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
4.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

13 Oct 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Oct13 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

111213

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
44km/h · peak gust
6%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

3% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 124 ha in 2018.

What happened to each town

  1. Kapako where it started
    4,303 ha reached on 11 Oct
    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)
11 Oct 37.6 °C 6 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
12 Oct 37.3 °C 7 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 70
13 Oct 36.9 °C 16 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
14 Oct after 35.8 °C 14 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
15 Oct after 35.4 °C 18 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
16 Oct after 36.0 °C 14 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
17 Oct after 36.8 °C 9 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
18 Oct after 37.5 °C 5 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
19 Oct after 38.7 °C 6 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
20 Oct after 39.4 °C 8 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
21 Oct after 40.1 °C 6 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
22 Oct after 38.4 °C 9 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 79
23 Oct after 38.2 °C 8 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 79

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Oct 2020
After · 20 Oct 2020

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 · 195Every 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 11 October 2020 and 13 October 2020: 3 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 4,278 hectares (42.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kapako (4,303 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.6 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 70, 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.