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Mpungu fire, 4 October 2018 Mpungu

Out · last detection 17 Oct 2018, 12:59 UTC

The fire started on 4 October 2018 in Mpungu, Namibia, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,404 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 7th largest in Kavango West since 2016 (of 152 with a page). Number 10 in Namibia in 2018, of 83.

Burnt area
10,404ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
14days
4 Oct 2018 – 17 Oct 2018
Municipalities hit
1
constituencies
Started on
4 Oct
2018
Heat detections
412
in a single hotspot: 165 MW
Danger at start
61
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
4.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

17 Oct 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Oct17 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

4567891011121314151617

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
52km/h · peak gust
6%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.4 mm on 21 Oct.

This area had burned before

2% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 119 ha in 2016, 45 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Mpungu where it started
    10,431 ha reached on 4 Oct
    1.3 %

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)
4 Oct 36.1 °C 9 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
5 Oct 37.0 °C 10 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
6 Oct 36.0 °C 10 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
7 Oct 35.8 °C 12 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
8 Oct 35.1 °C 9 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
9 Oct 34.8 °C 8 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
10 Oct 35.6 °C 8 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
11 Oct 36.4 °C 6 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
12 Oct 37.3 °C 7 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
13 Oct 37.2 °C 9 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
14 Oct 36.2 °C 9 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
15 Oct 36.5 °C 8 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
16 Oct 37.8 °C 7 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
17 Oct 38.5 °C 8 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
18 Oct after 38.6 °C 9 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
19 Oct after 37.9 °C 14 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
20 Oct after 37.2 °C 15 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
21 Oct after 35.6 °C 23 % 50 km/h 3.4 mm High 27

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 27 Sept 2018
After · 24 Oct 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 · 412Every 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 4 October 2018 and 17 October 2018: 14 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 10,404 hectares (104.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mpungu (10,431 ha, 1.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.6 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 71, 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.