Burned area
satellite only5,428ha
Perimeter published by GWIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 11 Aug 2020 – 20 Aug 2020
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
NA · Namibia · –
Kongola fire, 11 August 2020 Kongola
Out · last detection 20 Aug 2020, 23:50 UTC
The fire started on 11 August 2020 in Kongola, Namibia, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,428 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 11th largest in Zambezi since 2016 (of 87 with a page). Number 30 in Namibia in 2020, of 146.
Use this data
Compare with…
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-10-24matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only10days
11 Aug 2020 to 20 Aug 2020: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 20 Aug 2020, 23:50 UTC
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only11 Aug 2020
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 11 Aug 2020
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only182
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 114 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 11 Aug 2020 – 20 Aug 2020
+− cross-check
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
The worst day
satellite only1,411MW
Total radiative power on 11 August 2020; hotspots that day: 40.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 11 Aug 2020
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model41.6FWI · very high
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 60.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 11 Aug 2020, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model31.4°C · 12% RH
High of 31.4 °C and minimum humidity of 12% on 13 August 2020; gusts of 42 km/h on 19 August 2020.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 11 Aug 2020 – 20 Aug 2020
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
Living inside
model≈ 40people
Estimated residents inside the perimeter and 0.38 ha of built-up area (100 m grid, epoch 2020).
- Source
- GHSL R2023A · JRC
- Date
- calculated on 24 October 2026
+− cross-check
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
· reconstructed GHSLPopulation and built-up area computed
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
What was saved on 24 October 2026
Every night a snapshot of what the page shows is saved. If anything changes, it appears in the list as a log entry.
- Area
- 5,428 ha
- Dates
- 11 Aug 2020 – 20 Aug 2020
- Name
- Kongola
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/kongola-2020-08-2?v=2026-10-24A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire kongola-2020-08-2.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-08-11 | 40 | 1,411 | 30.2 | 12.9 | 14 | 11.2 | 26.3 | 0 | 41.6 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2020-08-12 | 21 | 405 | 30.7 | 14.1 | 13 | 13 | 31.7 | 0 | 44.5 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2020-08-13 | 0 | 0 | 31.4 | 12.3 | 12 | 16.2 | 36.4 | 0 | 49.5 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2020-08-14 | 63 | 1,107 | 30.4 | 13.6 | 12 | 12.2 | 31.7 | 0 | 45.3 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2020-08-15 | 18 | 29 | 29.5 | 14.7 | 14 | 14.3 | 32.4 | 0 | 47.9 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2020-08-16 | 12 | 56 | 31 | 10.8 | 13 | 10.5 | 24.1 | 0 | 44 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2020-08-17 | 14 | 146 | 31.3 | 12.2 | 13 | 12.2 | 32.4 | 0 | 46.1 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2020-08-18 | 9 | 227 | 30.6 | 12.2 | 14 | 18.4 | 34.9 | 0 | 53.4 | extremo | 1 |
| 2020-08-19 | 0 | 0 | 23.9 | 10.7 | 14 | 20.2 | 42.5 | 0 | 54 | extremo | 1 |
| 2020-08-20 | 5 | 7 | 26.6 | 9.5 | 11 | 12 | 27.4 | 0 | 44.9 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2020-08-21 | 0 | 0 | 29 | 11.9 | 26 | 11.9 | 29.2 | 0 | 39.8 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2020-08-22 | 0 | 0 | 28.7 | 14.9 | 27 | 17.3 | 38.5 | 0 | 43.2 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2020-08-23 | 0 | 0 | 27.7 | 15.4 | 28 | 14.8 | 34.2 | 0 | 39.4 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2020-08-24 | 0 | 0 | 29.2 | 15.8 | 23 | 10.5 | 27.7 | 0 | 35.7 | alto | 0 |
| 2020-08-25 | 0 | 0 | 30.4 | 13.2 | 20 | 11.5 | 29.9 | 0 | 37.7 | alto | 0 |
| 2020-08-26 | 0 | 0 | 32.9 | 12.7 | 14 | 15.3 | 35.6 | 0 | 47.6 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2020-08-27 | 0 | 0 | 34.2 | 15.4 | 13 | 15.7 | 34.9 | 0 | 50.3 | extremo | 0 |
| 2020-08-28 | 0 | 0 | 33.4 | 17.9 | 17 | 20.3 | 44.3 | 0 | 56.2 | extremo | 0 |
| 2020-08-29 | 0 | 0 | 32.6 | 18.8 | 29 | 15.8 | 41.8 | 0 | 43.7 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2020-08-30 | 0 | 0 | 24.6 | 18.7 | 28 | 13.4 | 26.6 | 0.2 | 37.3 | alto | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: GWIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0), GHSL (JRC). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 5,428ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 10days
- 11 Aug 2020 – 20 Aug 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- constituencies
- Started on
- 11 Aug
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 182
- in a single hotspot: 114 MW
- Danger at start
- 42
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 423MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
11 Aug20 Aug
20 Aug 2020
How it evolved, day by day
11 Aug
14 Aug
16 Aug
18 Aug
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
31°high
42km/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
40% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,747 ha in 2016, 965 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,173 ha that had burned before.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Kongola where it started5,455 ha reached on 11 Aug1.1 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2020Built-up area0.38 ha
Residents≈ 40
Inside the perimeter there were about 0.38 hectares of built-up land and about 40 residents (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
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)
Started with Very dry air: 81 % of the area in Namibia 60 days without rain: 88 % of the area in Namibia
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11 Aug | 30.2 °C | 14 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 12 Aug | 30.7 °C | 13 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 13 Aug | 31.4 °C | 12 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 14 Aug | 30.4 °C | 12 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 15 Aug | 29.5 °C | 14 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 16 Aug | 31.0 °C | 13 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 17 Aug | 31.3 °C | 13 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 18 Aug | 30.6 °C | 14 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 19 Aug | 23.9 °C | 14 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 20 Aug | 26.6 °C | 11 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 21 Aug after | 29.0 °C | 26 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 22 Aug after | 28.7 °C | 27 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 23 Aug after | 27.7 °C | 28 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 24 Aug after | 29.2 °C | 23 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 25 Aug after | 30.4 °C | 20 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 26 Aug after | 32.9 °C | 14 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 27 Aug after | 34.2 °C | 13 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 28 Aug after | 33.4 °C | 17 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 29 Aug after | 32.6 °C | 29 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 30 Aug after | 24.6 °C | 28 % | 27 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 37 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 41.6, a minimum humidity of 14% and more than two months without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 23.
FWI at the start
41.6
Minimum humidity
14 %
Days without rain
60+
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Kongola fire, 11 August 2020
5,428 ha
10 days
FWI 41.6
Min. humidity 14 %
Linyanti fire, September 2022
2,241 ha
13 days
FWI 42.1
Min. humidity 14 %
54 km away, in 2022
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Linyanti fire, August 2018
2,494 ha
8 days
FWI 41.3
Min. humidity 15 %
27 km away, in 2018
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Chobe fire, August 2018
3,975 ha
5 days
FWI 42.3
Min. humidity 14 %
108 km away, in 2018
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Kongola fire, July 2019
2,407 ha
12 days
FWI 41.5
Min. humidity 16 %
60 km away, in 2019
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Sesheke fire, July 2016
3,485 ha
6 days
FWI 41.0
Min. humidity 16 %
42 km away, in 2016
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
What happened to them
- 8 days
- median duration
- 3,402 ha
- median area
- 13 %
- went past 10,000 ha
- —
- rain at the end (median; 0 of 23 had it)
It was 1.6 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 10 days, against 8 days.
Only 6 of its 23 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In none of them did 1 mm fall in the ten days after the end: they all went out without rain.
This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it
How it ended
—first rain
—no rain in ten days
42km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 20 Aug, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. None of its 23 twins had rain when they ended.
Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)
How a twin is chosen
- Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
- Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
- Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
- Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
- They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 4 Aug 2020
After · 27 Aug 2020
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
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 · 182Every 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 time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Kongola fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 11 August 2020 and 20 August 2020: 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 5,428 hectares (54.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Kongola (5,455 ha, 1.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 31.4 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, 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.
- How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
- Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 23. Their median duration was 8 days and their median area 3,402 ha; 13 % went past 10,000 ha. Only 6 of its 23 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In none of them did 1 mm fall in the ten days after the end: they all went out without rain.
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
History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version
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.
Report an error
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 182 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.