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Kongola fire, October 2022 Kongola, Sibbinda

Out · last detection 16 Oct 2022, 22:54 UTC

The fire started on 6 October 2022 in Kongola, Namibia, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,045 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 42th largest in Zambezi since 2016 (of 107 with a page). Number 66 in Namibia in 2022, of 119.

Burnt area
3,045ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
11days
6 Oct 2022 – 16 Oct 2022
Municipalities hit
2
constituencies
Started on
6 Oct
2022
Heat detections
185
in a single hotspot: 78 MW
Danger at start
60
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
1.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

16 Oct 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Oct16 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

678910111213141516

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
50km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

89% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 541 ha in 2017, 2,331 ha in 2019, 1,812 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,712 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Kongola where it started
    2,821 ha reached on 3 Oct
    0.6 %
  2. Sibbinda
    238 ha reached on 7 Oct
    0.1 %

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)
6 Oct 37.0 °C 10 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
7 Oct 36.9 °C 11 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
8 Oct 35.7 °C 11 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
9 Oct 35.3 °C 9 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
10 Oct 35.4 °C 9 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
11 Oct 35.0 °C 10 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
12 Oct 34.7 °C 14 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
13 Oct 36.2 °C 13 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
14 Oct 36.4 °C 10 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
15 Oct 36.4 °C 12 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
16 Oct 37.0 °C 11 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
17 Oct after 35.8 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
18 Oct after 34.7 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
19 Oct after 33.6 °C 25 % 42 km/h 0.8 mm Very high 42
20 Oct after 34.6 °C 20 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
21 Oct after 35.4 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
22 Oct after 35.5 °C 17 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
23 Oct after 36.4 °C 16 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
24 Oct after 36.1 °C 18 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
25 Oct after 36.5 °C 21 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
26 Oct after 34.6 °C 23 % 32 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 50

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Sept 2022
After · 23 Oct 2022

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 · 185Every 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 6 October 2022 and 16 October 2022: 11 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 3,045 hectares (30.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Kongola (2,821 ha, 0.6 %); Sibbinda (238 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.0 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 67, 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.