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Mukwe fire, September 2019 Mukwe

Out · last detection 1 Oct 2019, 23:25 UTC

The fire started on 19 September 2019 in Mukwe, Namibia, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,498 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 107th largest in Kavango East since 2016 (of 394 with a page). Number 11 in Namibia in 2019, of 45.

Burnt area
5,498ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
19 Sept 2019 – 30 Sept 2019
Municipalities hit
1
constituencies
Started on
19 Sept
2019
Heat detections
195
in a single hotspot: 66 MW
Danger at start
57
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
1.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

1 Oct 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Sept30 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

1920212223242526272829301

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
49km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 9 Oct.

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
    5,483 ha reached on 19 Sept
    1.0 %

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)
19 Sept 33.4 °C 12 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
20 Sept 33.1 °C 10 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
21 Sept 32.7 °C 11 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
22 Sept 34.2 °C 12 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
23 Sept 33.2 °C 10 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
24 Sept 34.6 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
25 Sept 30.8 °C 26 % 46 km/h 0.3 mm Extreme 52
26 Sept 26.5 °C 23 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
27 Sept 27.0 °C 15 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
28 Sept 30.0 °C 11 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
29 Sept 32.6 °C 9 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
30 Sept 32.3 °C 12 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
1 Oct after 30.3 °C 12 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
2 Oct after 30.6 °C 15 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
3 Oct after 33.3 °C 23 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
4 Oct after 33.9 °C 19 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
5 Oct after 34.6 °C 23 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
6 Oct after 35.5 °C 18 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
7 Oct after 36.3 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
8 Oct after 37.4 °C 11 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
9 Oct after 36.3 °C 17 % 42 km/h 1.1 mm Very high 49

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 12 Sept 2019
After · 7 Oct 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 · 195Every 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 19 September 2019 and 30 September 2019: 12 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 5,498 hectares (55.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mukwe (5,483 ha, 1.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.6 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 64, 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.