Mpungu fire, October 2025 Mpungu
The fire started on 1 October 2025 in Mpungu, Namibia, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,847 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 91th largest in Kavango West since 2016 (of 152 with a page). Number 53 in Namibia in 2025, of 87.
- Burnt area
- 2,847ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 6days
- 1 Oct 2025 – 6 Oct 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- constituencies
- Started on
- 1 Oct
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 85
- in a single hotspot: 0 MW
- Danger at start
- 67
- Extreme · FWI index
- Energy released
- 1.2GW
- sum of detected power
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 more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
39% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 80 ha in 2016, 1,032 ha in 2018.
What happened to each town
-
Mpungu where it started2,852 ha0.4 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Oct | 36.0 °C | 15 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 67 |
| 2 Oct | 36.1 °C | 13 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 65 |
| 3 Oct | 37.0 °C | 12 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 4 Oct | 37.4 °C | 9 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 5 Oct | 36.8 °C | 5 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 74 |
| 6 Oct | 37.5 °C | 7 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 71 |
| 7 Oct after | 37.7 °C | 8 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 8 Oct after | 37.3 °C | 9 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 72 |
| 9 Oct after | 36.6 °C | 12 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 74 |
| 10 Oct after | 35.4 °C | 15 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 11 Oct after | 34.7 °C | 18 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 12 Oct after | 35.2 °C | 18 % | 34 km/h | 0.9 mm | Very high 44 |
| 13 Oct after | 34.3 °C | 20 % | 25 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 41 |
| 14 Oct after | 34.6 °C | 19 % | 41 km/h | 0.9 mm | Very high 46 |
| 15 Oct after | 35.6 °C | 18 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 16 Oct after | 36.2 °C | 14 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
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 9 October 2025 the air beside the fire reached 18 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO 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 · 0Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 10,404 haMpungu4 October 2018 · 14 days · 27 km away
- 13,838 haOkongo10 September 2016 · 12 days · 32 km away
- 10,294 haCuangar25 September 2025 · 12 days · 32 km away
- 8,183 haOkongoSeptember 2021 · 3 days · 32 km away
- 16,887 haCuangar31 August 2026 · 16 days · 33 km away
- 13,507 haMpunguAugust 2018 · 22 days · 38 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Mpungu fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 October 2025 and 6 October 2025: 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 2,847 hectares (28.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Mpungu (2,852 ha, 0.4 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.5 °C, humidity dropped to 5 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 74, 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.
Report an error
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.