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Mukwe fire, August 2016 Mukwe

Out · last detection 7 Aug 2016, 11:37 UTC

The fire started on 4 August 2016 in Mukwe, Namibia, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,512 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 168th largest in Kavango East since 2016 (of 394 with a page). Number 54 in Namibia in 2016, of 108.

Burnt area
3,512ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
4 Aug 2016 – 6 Aug 2016
Municipalities hit
1
constituencies
Started on
4 Aug
2016
Heat detections
90
in a single hotspot: 118 MW
Danger at start
56
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
1.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

7 Aug 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Aug6 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

4567

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
39km/h · peak gust
8%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. Mukwe where it started
    3,531 ha reached on 4 Aug
    0.6 %

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 Aug 24.8 °C 14 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
5 Aug 27.4 °C 8 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
6 Aug 28.0 °C 16 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
7 Aug after 28.3 °C 9 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
8 Aug after 28.2 °C 10 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
9 Aug after 28.2 °C 17 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
10 Aug after 27.2 °C 26 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
11 Aug after 28.0 °C 21 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
12 Aug after 28.9 °C 16 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
13 Aug after 30.0 °C 15 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
14 Aug after 31.9 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
15 Aug after 32.0 °C 12 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
16 Aug after 30.7 °C 14 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Jul 2016
After · 13 Aug 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 · 90Every 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 Mukwe fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 August 2016 and 6 August 2016: 3 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 3,512 hectares (35.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mukwe (3,531 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 28.0 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, class 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.