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Ndiyona fire, 27 July 2016 Ndiyona

Out · last detection 3 Aug 2016, 12:52 UTC

The fire started on 27 July 2016 in Ndiyona, Namibia, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,552 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 162th largest in Kavango East since 2016 (of 394 with a page). Number 51 in Namibia in 2016, of 108.

Burnt area
3,552ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
27 Jul 2016 – 3 Aug 2016
Municipalities hit
1
constituencies
Started on
27 Jul
2016
Heat detections
116
in a single hotspot: 43 MW
Danger at start
47
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

3 Aug 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Jul3 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

2728293031123

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
36km/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. Ndiyona where it started
    3,580 ha reached on 27 Jul
    0.4 %

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)
27 Jul 26.7 °C 9 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
28 Jul 28.5 °C 8 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
29 Jul 30.6 °C 9 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
30 Jul 31.0 °C 10 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
31 Jul 30.8 °C 11 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
1 Aug 27.7 °C 10 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
2 Aug 28.8 °C 10 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
3 Aug 28.0 °C 10 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
4 Aug after 23.0 °C 14 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
5 Aug after 26.1 °C 7 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
6 Aug after 27.4 °C 14 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
7 Aug after 27.7 °C 11 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
8 Aug after 28.2 °C 10 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
9 Aug after 28.1 °C 12 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
10 Aug after 27.3 °C 23 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
11 Aug after 26.9 °C 23 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
12 Aug after 28.4 °C 16 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 Aug after 30.1 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 20 Jul 2016
After · 10 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 · 116Every 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 Ndiyona fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 27 July 2016 and 3 August 2016: 8 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 3,552 hectares (35.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Ndiyona (3,580 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.0 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 57, 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.