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NA · Namibia · →

Kapako fire, July 2026 Kapako

Out · last detection 2 Aug 2026, 12:08 UTC

The fire started on 26 July 2026 in Kapako, Namibia, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,673 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 67th largest in Kavango West since 2016 (of 152 with a page). Number 65 in Namibia in 2026, of 153.

Burnt area
3,673ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
26 Jul 2026 – 4 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit
1
constituencies
Started on
26 Jul
2026
Heat detections
64
in a single hotspot: 36 MW
Danger at start
49
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
503MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

2 Aug 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 Jul4 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

26272829303112

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

The weather it burned in

29°high
40km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

69% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,148 ha in 2017, 232 ha in 2018, 227 ha in 2020, 87 ha in 2022, 108 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,534 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Kapako where it started
    3,682 ha reached on 26 Jul
    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)
26 Jul 26.6 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
27 Jul 26.3 °C 22 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
28 Jul 27.3 °C 17 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
29 Jul 27.9 °C 14 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
30 Jul 29.0 °C 11 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
31 Jul 28.6 °C 12 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
1 Aug 28.0 °C 13 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
2 Aug 27.5 °C 15 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
3 Aug 27.3 °C 12 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
4 Aug 28.1 °C 13 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
5 Aug after 29.3 °C 14 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
6 Aug after 29.6 °C 13 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
7 Aug after 28.4 °C 13 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
8 Aug after 27.8 °C 12 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
9 Aug after 28.6 °C 14 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
10 Aug after 25.7 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
11 Aug after 24.2 °C 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
12 Aug after 25.8 °C 13 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
13 Aug after 28.1 °C 24 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
14 Aug after 27.7 °C 26 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 19 Jul 2026
After · 11 Aug 2026

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 24 July 2026 the air beside the fire reached 28 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 18: 1.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak28 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1029 µg/m³
Optical depth0.40
24252627282930311234567
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 64Every 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 26 July 2026 and 4 August 2026: 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 3,673 hectares (36.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kapako (3,682 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.0 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, 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.