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Mukwe fire, July 2019 Mukwe

Out · last detection 8 Aug 2019, 12:27 UTC

The fire started on 31 July 2019 in Mukwe, Namibia, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,154 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 143th largest in Kavango East since 2016 (of 394 with a page). Number 19 in Namibia in 2019, of 45.

Burnt area
4,154ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
31 Jul 2019 – 8 Aug 2019
Municipalities hit
1
constituencies
Started on
31 Jul
2019
Heat detections
132
in a single hotspot: 68 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

8 Aug 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 31 Jul8 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

3112345678

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
38km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

21% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 878 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Mukwe where it started
    4,173 ha reached on 31 Jul
    0.8 %

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)
31 Jul 28.0 °C 12 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
1 Aug 28.4 °C 11 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
2 Aug 28.7 °C 17 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
3 Aug 29.6 °C 24 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
4 Aug 30.6 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
5 Aug 30.8 °C 25 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
6 Aug 31.3 °C 21 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
7 Aug 32.0 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
8 Aug 32.4 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
9 Aug after 32.7 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
10 Aug after 29.8 °C 19 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
11 Aug after 28.4 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
12 Aug after 29.1 °C 22 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 Aug after 29.6 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
14 Aug after 30.4 °C 13 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
15 Aug after 29.6 °C 16 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
16 Aug after 26.9 °C 24 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
17 Aug after 27.3 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
18 Aug after 28.0 °C 16 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Jul 2019
After · 15 Aug 2019

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 · 132Every 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 31 July 2019 and 8 August 2019: 9 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 4,154 hectares (41.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mukwe (4,173 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.4 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, class Very high.
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.