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Mpungu fire, 15 October 2016 Mpungu

Out · last detection 20 Oct 2016, 11:50 UTC

The fire started on 15 October 2016 in Mpungu, Namibia, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,003 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 84th largest in Kavango West since 2016 (of 152 with a page). Number 68 in Namibia in 2016, of 108.

Burnt area
3,003ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
15 Oct 2016 – 20 Oct 2016
Municipalities hit
1
constituencies
Started on
15 Oct
2016
Heat detections
108
in a single hotspot: 165 MW
Danger at start
72
Very extreme · FWI index
Energy released
2.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

20 Oct 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Oct20 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

151617181920

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

The weather it burned in

40°high
49km/h · peak gust
7%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months 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. Mpungu where it started
    3,017 ha reached on 15 Oct
    0.4 %

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 Oct 39.1 °C 8 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
16 Oct 38.4 °C 7 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
17 Oct 38.8 °C 8 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
18 Oct 39.5 °C 8 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
19 Oct 38.0 °C 12 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 75
20 Oct 37.6 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
21 Oct after 38.2 °C 13 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
22 Oct after 37.8 °C 12 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
23 Oct after 39.1 °C 12 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
24 Oct after 38.9 °C 12 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
25 Oct after 38.9 °C 13 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
26 Oct after 38.4 °C 13 % 40 km/h 0.6 mm Extreme 56
27 Oct after 39.0 °C 12 % 48 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 62
28 Oct after 37.6 °C 12 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
29 Oct after 37.3 °C 14 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
30 Oct after 39.2 °C 10 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 8 Oct 2016
After · 27 Oct 2016

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 · 108Every 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 Mpungu fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 15 October 2016 and 20 October 2016: 6 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 3,003 hectares (30.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mpungu (3,017 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.5 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 75, class Very extreme.
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.