Linyanti fire, 7 July 2026 Linyanti, Sibbinda
The fire started on 7 July 2026 in Linyanti, Namibia, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,698 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 6th largest in Zambezi since 2016 (of 107 with a page). Number 23 in Namibia in 2026, of 159.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 9,698ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 7days
- 7 Jul 2026 – 13 Jul 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- constituencies
- Started on
- 7 Jul
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 29
- in a single hotspot: 41 MW
- Danger at start
- 29
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 82MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 16 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
80% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,278 ha in 2016, 2,975 ha in 2017, 421 ha in 2018, 2,489 ha in 2019, 1,225 ha in 2020, 2,253 ha in 2021, 1,220 ha in 2024, 1,360 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,764 ha that had burned before.
- 2,896 ha Linyanti fire, April 2016 3,638 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,225 ha Chobe fire, May 2021 2,546 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 544 ha Linyanti fire, July 2017 2,038 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 305 ha Sibbinda fire, July 2020 7,499 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 112 ha Chobe fire, September 2017 5,955 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 28 ha Chobe fire, August 2021 31,348 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
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
-
Linyanti where it started5,058 ha reached on 7 Jul1.4 %
-
1,722 ha1.0 %
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 2025Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
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)
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7 Jul | 24.7 °C | 36 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 8 Jul | 24.5 °C | 32 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 9 Jul | 24.6 °C | 28 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 10 Jul | 25.0 °C | 25 % | 17 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 11 Jul | 25.9 °C | 20 % | 17 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 12 Jul | 27.2 °C | 14 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 13 Jul | 27.5 °C | 17 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 14 Jul after | 27.6 °C | 23 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 15 Jul after | 27.3 °C | 19 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 16 Jul after | 27.6 °C | 17 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 17 Jul after | 27.6 °C | 16 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 18 Jul after | 28.1 °C | 7 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 19 Jul after | 28.3 °C | 16 % | 17 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 20 Jul after | 28.4 °C | 16 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 21 Jul after | 29.8 °C | 15 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 22 Jul after | 29.3 °C | 18 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 23 Jul after | 30.0 °C | 19 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 11 July 2026 the air beside the fire reached 24 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 19: 1.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)
Detections table · 29Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 6,398 haChobe26 August 2017 · 19 days · 12 km away
- 5,955 haChobe1 September 2017 · 9 days · 12 km away
- 6,037 haSibbindaAugust 2026 · 7 days · 13 km away
- 7,499 haSibbindaJuly 2020 · 7 days · 14 km away
- 19,895 haChobe27 September 2022 · 9 days · 17 km away
- 31,348 haChobe16 August 2021 · 14 days · 19 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Linyanti fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 7 July 2026 to 13 July 2026 (7 days). The perimeter dates it from 9 July 2026 to 13 July 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 9,698 hectares (97.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Linyanti (5,058 ha, 1.4 %); Sibbinda (1,722 ha, 1.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 27.5 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 33, class 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
History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Start date: 9 July 2026 → 7 July 2026.
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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 9 July 2026 to 13 July 2026. 29 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 2025, 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.