Skip to content
worldfires
ZA · South Africa · →

Mpofana fire, September 2022 Mpofana, Impendle, Inkosi Langalibalele

Out · last detection 6 Sept 2022, 00:06 UTC

The fire started on 2 September 2022 in Mpofana, South Africa, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,109 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 22th largest in KwaZulu-Natal since 2016 (of 171 with a page). Number 28 in South Africa in 2022, of 143.

Burnt area
5,109ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
2 Sept 2022 – 6 Sept 2022
Municipalities hit
3
municipalities
Started on
2 Sept
2022
Heat detections
182
in a single hotspot: 96 MW
Danger at start
11
Low · FWI index
Energy released
2.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

6 Sept 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Sept6 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

23456

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

The weather it burned in

23°high
49km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.9 mm on 12 Sept.

This area had burned before

91% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,075 ha in 2016, 1,213 ha in 2017, 149 ha in 2018, 1,312 ha in 2019, 3,396 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,654 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mpofana where it started
    3,174 ha reached on 2 Sept
    1.8 %
  2. Impendle
    1,137 ha reached on 4 Sept
    0.7 %
  3. Inkosi Langalibalele
    821 ha reached on 4 Sept
    0.2 %

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)
2 Sept 22.1 °C 33 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
3 Sept 23.4 °C 29 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
4 Sept 22.9 °C 30 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
5 Sept 22.5 °C 9 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
6 Sept 16.3 °C 47 % 35 km/h 0.5 mm Moderate 16
7 Sept after 19.4 °C 39 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
8 Sept after 23.1 °C 23 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
9 Sept after 23.4 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
10 Sept after 24.9 °C 11 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
11 Sept after 24.1 °C 20 % 48 km/h 0.3 mm High 28
12 Sept after 8.8 °C 89 % 30 km/h 4.9 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 Aug 2022
After · 13 Sept 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 · 182Every 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 Mpofana fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 2 September 2022 and 6 September 2022: 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 5,109 hectares (51.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Mpofana (3,174 ha, 1.8 %); Impendle (1,137 ha, 0.7 %); Inkosi Langalibalele (821 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 23.4 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 26, class High.
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.