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Kongola fire, 11 September 2018 Kongola

Out · last detection 17 Sept 2018, 23:31 UTC

The fire started on 11 September 2018 in Kongola, Namibia, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,071 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 11th largest in Zambezi since 2016 (of 107 with a page). Number 21 in Namibia in 2018, of 83.

Burnt area
6,071ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
11 Sept 2018 – 16 Sept 2018
Municipalities hit
1
constituencies
Started on
11 Sept
2018
Heat detections
189
in a single hotspot: 88 MW
Danger at start
45
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
3.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

17 Sept 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Sept16 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

11121314151617

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
32km/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

12% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 702 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Kongola where it started
    5,727 ha reached on 10 Sept
    1.1 %

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 Sept 30.6 °C 13 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
12 Sept 32.5 °C 11 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
13 Sept 33.5 °C 13 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
14 Sept 34.1 °C 12 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
15 Sept 35.0 °C 11 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
16 Sept 36.0 °C 12 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
17 Sept after 36.5 °C 11 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
18 Sept after 36.8 °C 12 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
19 Sept after 36.2 °C 12 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
20 Sept after 34.7 °C 14 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
21 Sept after 35.2 °C 14 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
22 Sept after 34.3 °C 18 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
23 Sept after 34.8 °C 13 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
24 Sept after 34.6 °C 16 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
25 Sept after 35.4 °C 18 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
26 Sept after 36.3 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Sept 2018
After · 23 Sept 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 · 189Every 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 Kongola fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 11 September 2018 and 16 September 2018: 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 6,071 hectares (60.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kongola (5,727 ha, 1.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.0 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, 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.