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NA · Namibia · –

Ndiyona fire, 20 June 2022 Ndiyona

Out · last detection 25 Jun 2022, 12:02 UTC

The fire started on 20 June 2022 in Ndiyona, Namibia, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,091 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 62th largest in Kavango East since 2016 (of 332 with a page). Number 24 in Namibia in 2022, of 119.

Burnt area
7,091ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
20 Jun 2022 – 25 Jun 2022
Municipalities hit
1
constituencies
Started on
20 Jun
2022
Heat detections
217
in a single hotspot: 67 MW
Danger at start
50
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
432MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Jun25 Jun
25 Jun 2022

How it evolved, day by day

20 Jun 2022 · 33 MW · 13 21 Jun 2022 · 542 MW · 62 22 Jun 2022 · 1,450 MW · 102 23 Jun 2022 · 555 MW · 34 24 Jun 2022 · 7 MW · 3 25 Jun 2022 · 9 MW · 3
20 Jun 22 Jun 24 Jun

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
46km/h · peak gust
25%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

95% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,495 ha in 2016, 2,792 ha in 2017, 5,760 ha in 2019, 1,511 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,730 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 4.5% of the area of London (71 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Ndiyona where it started
    7,136 ha reached on 20 Jun
    0.9 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)

Started with 60 days without rain: 88 % of the area in Namibia

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
20 Jun 28.4 °C 25 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
21 Jun 25.9 °C 32 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
22 Jun 26.7 °C 31 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
23 Jun 27.8 °C 26 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
24 Jun 25.7 °C 29 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
25 Jun 23.9 °C 31 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
26 Jun after 24.2 °C 27 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
27 Jun after 22.5 °C 35 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
28 Jun after 20.8 °C 38 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
29 Jun after 19.6 °C 44 % 40 km/h 0.6 mm High 26
30 Jun after 19.9 °C 47 % 35 km/h 0.2 mm High 25
1 Jul after 21.4 °C 39 % 34 km/h 0.1 mm High 26
2 Jul after 20.9 °C 45 % 28 km/h 0.2 mm High 24
3 Jul after 22.8 °C 35 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
4 Jul after 24.3 °C 26 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
5 Jul after 26.1 °C 25 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 34

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 50.4, a minimum humidity of 25% and more than two months without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 24.

FWI at the start 50.4
Minimum humidity 25 %
Days without rain 60+
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Ngamiland West fire, October 2018
14,791 ha 14 days FWI 49.5 Min. humidity 26 % 246 km away, in 2018

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.

What happened to them

11 days
median duration
6,761 ha
median area
38 %
went past 10,000 ha
2.4 mm
rain at the end (median; 1 of 24 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (7,091 ha against a median of 6,761 ha) and lasted 6 days, against 11 days.

In 23 of 24, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.4 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

—first rain
—no rain in ten days
46km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 25 Jun, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 1 of 24, with a median of 2.4 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Jun 2022
After · 2 Jul 2022

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 · 217Every 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 20 June 2022 and 25 June 2022: 6 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 7,091 hectares (70.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Ndiyona (7,136 ha, 0.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 28.4 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 24. Their median duration was 11 days and their median area 6,761 ha; 38 % went past 10,000 ha. In 23 of 24, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.4 mm.

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

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

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.

Report an error
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How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 217 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology

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.