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NA · Namibia · →

Kongola fire, 22 May 2023 Kongola

Out · last detection 24 May 2023, 13:00 UTC

The fire started on 22 May 2023 in Kongola, Namibia, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,155 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 25th largest in Zambezi since 2016 (of 107 with a page). Number 52 in Namibia in 2023, of 111.

Burnt area
4,155ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
22 May 2023 – 24 May 2023
Municipalities hit
1
constituencies
Started on
22 May
2023
Heat detections
103
in a single hotspot: 294 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
6.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

24 May 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 May24 May

How it evolved, day by day

222324

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
31km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 54 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

72% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 550 ha in 2016, 540 ha in 2017, 2,019 ha in 2019, 642 ha in 2020, 1,032 ha in 2021, 349 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,976 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Kongola where it started
    4,175 ha reached on 22 May
    0.8 %

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)
22 May 31.5 °C 18 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
23 May 31.6 °C 18 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
24 May 31.2 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
25 May after 31.5 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
26 May after 31.5 °C 22 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
27 May after 31.0 °C 20 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
28 May after 29.3 °C 21 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
29 May after 29.0 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
30 May after 31.2 °C 28 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
31 May after 30.4 °C 32 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
1 Jun after 30.2 °C 30 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
2 Jun after 31.6 °C 26 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
3 Jun after 31.4 °C 22 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 May 2023
After · 31 May 2023

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 · 103Every 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 22 May 2023 and 24 May 2023: 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 4,155 hectares (41.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kongola (4,175 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.6 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 31 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, class Very high.
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.