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Ndiyona fire, 13 September 2020 Ndiyona

Out · last detection 17 Sept 2020, 12:14 UTC

The fire started on 13 September 2020 in Ndiyona, Namibia, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,298 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 136th largest in Kavango East since 2016 (of 394 with a page). Number 43 in Namibia in 2020, of 146.

Burnt area
4,298ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
13 Sept 2020 – 16 Sept 2020
Municipalities hit
1
constituencies
Started on
13 Sept
2020
Heat detections
146
in a single hotspot: 74 MW
Danger at start
51
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
2.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

17 Sept 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Sept16 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

1314151617

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
40km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

84% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 764 ha in 2016, 474 ha in 2017, 3,349 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,595 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Ndiyona where it started
    4,323 ha reached on 11 Sept
    0.5 %

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)
13 Sept 30.1 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
14 Sept 32.4 °C 10 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
15 Sept 33.7 °C 11 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
16 Sept 33.0 °C 9 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
17 Sept after 34.6 °C 11 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
18 Sept after 32.5 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
19 Sept after 35.2 °C 16 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
20 Sept after 36.2 °C 13 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
21 Sept after 35.9 °C 15 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
22 Sept after 36.9 °C 10 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
23 Sept after 35.4 °C 14 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
24 Sept after 35.7 °C 13 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
25 Sept after 35.8 °C 13 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
26 Sept after 35.7 °C 10 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 6 Sept 2020
After · 23 Sept 2020

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 · 146Every 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 13 September 2020 and 16 September 2020: 4 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 4,298 hectares (43.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Ndiyona (4,323 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.7 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 40 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.