Skip to content
worldfires
ZA · South Africa · →

Moses Kotane fire, 15 August 2017 Moses Kotane

Out · last detection 19 Aug 2017, 12:06 UTC

The fire started on 15 August 2017 in Moses Kotane, South Africa, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,540 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 14th largest in North West since 2016 (of 171 with a page). Number 28 in South Africa in 2017, of 128.

Burnt area
6,540ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
15 Aug 2017 – 19 Aug 2017
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
15 Aug
2017
Heat detections
283
in a single hotspot: 129 MW
Danger at start
38
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
4.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

19 Aug 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Aug19 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

1516171819

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

The weather it burned in

28°high
61km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone 37 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Moses Kotane where it started
    6,556 ha reached on 15 Aug
    1.1 %

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)
15 Aug 25.8 °C 19 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
16 Aug 27.7 °C 11 % 61 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
17 Aug 16.0 °C 21 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
18 Aug 18.6 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
19 Aug 19.7 °C 26 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
20 Aug after 20.0 °C 26 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
21 Aug after 22.2 °C 26 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
22 Aug after 27.4 °C 11 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
23 Aug after 22.3 °C 13 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
24 Aug after 25.5 °C 8 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
25 Aug after 26.1 °C 5 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
26 Aug after 22.2 °C 21 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
27 Aug after 24.9 °C 28 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
28 Aug after 25.8 °C 31 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
29 Aug after 25.2 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 8 Aug 2017
After · 26 Aug 2017

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 · 283Every 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 Moses Kotane fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 15 August 2017 and 19 August 2017: 5 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 6,540 hectares (65.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Moses Kotane (6,556 ha, 1.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 27.7 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 61 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 64, 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.