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Lephalale fire, 7 September 2018 Lephalale

Out · last detection 9 Sept 2018, 22:43 UTC

The fire started on 7 September 2018 in Lephalale, South Africa, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,716 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 70th largest in Limpopo since 2016 (of 210 with a page). Number 31 in South Africa in 2018, of 96.

Burnt area
3,716ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
7 Sept 2018 – 9 Sept 2018
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
7 Sept
2018
Heat detections
160
in a single hotspot: 53 MW
Danger at start
48
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

9 Sept 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Sept9 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

89

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

The weather it burned in

27°high
53km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone 59 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 39 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Lephalale where it started
    3,753 ha reached on 8 Sept
    0.3 %

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)
7 Sept 27.2 °C 23 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
8 Sept 23.9 °C 13 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
9 Sept 18.9 °C 11 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
10 Sept after 21.1 °C 16 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
11 Sept after 24.5 °C 9 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
12 Sept after 28.8 °C 7 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
13 Sept after 30.2 °C 5 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
14 Sept after 30.7 °C 4 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
15 Sept after 32.8 °C 3 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
16 Sept after 32.6 °C 7 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
17 Sept after 33.4 °C 8 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
18 Sept after 35.4 °C 6 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
19 Sept after 35.9 °C 6 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 31 Aug 2018
After · 16 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 · 160Every 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 South Africa ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Lephalale fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 7 September 2018 and 9 September 2018: 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 3,716 hectares (37.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Lephalale (3,753 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 27.2 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, class Extreme.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of South Africa (geoBoundaries). 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.

Emergency number: 10177 · 112

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.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy. This is not an emergency service: if there is a fire now, call 10177 · 112.

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 geoBoundaries ADM3 (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY 3.0 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.