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Ndiyona fire, 20 August 2022 Ndiyona

Out · last detection 21 Sept 2022, 12:53 UTC

The fire started on 20 August 2022 in Ndiyona, Namibia, and satellites saw it burning for 33 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 59,032 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 4th largest in Kavango East since 2016 (of 394 with a page). The largest in Namibia in 2022, of 119.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Ndiyona · 2017Ndiyona · 2026Ndiyona · 2023Ndiyona · 2016

Burnt area
59,032ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
33days
20 Aug 2022 – 21 Sept 2022
Municipalities hit
1
constituencies
Started on
20 Aug
2022
Heat detections
2,460
in a single hotspot: 155 MW
Danger at start
52
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
957MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Aug21 Sept
21 Sept 2022

How it evolved, day by day

20 Aug 2022 · 5 MW · 1 21 Aug 2022 · 280 MW · 13 23 Aug 2022 · 50 MW · 15 24 Aug 2022 · 164 MW · 34 25 Aug 2022 · 399 MW · 46 26 Aug 2022 · 390 MW · 61 27 Aug 2022 · 295 MW · 44 28 Aug 2022 · 275 MW · 55 29 Aug 2022 · 1,002 MW · 50 30 Aug 2022 · 1,244 MW · 125 31 Aug 2022 · 442 MW · 112 1 Sept 2022 · 581 MW · 71 2 Sept 2022 · 1,777 MW · 84 3 Sept 2022 · 701 MW · 71 4 Sept 2022 · 4,751 MW · 193 5 Sept 2022 · 6,770 MW · 214 6 Sept 2022 · 2,174 MW · 402 7 Sept 2022 · 1,221 MW · 131 8 Sept 2022 · 814 MW · 78 9 Sept 2022 · 1,706 MW · 107 10 Sept 2022 · 1,091 MW · 78 11 Sept 2022 · 821 MW · 93 12 Sept 2022 · 414 MW · 61 13 Sept 2022 · 618 MW · 40 14 Sept 2022 · 467 MW · 40 15 Sept 2022 · 304 MW · 44 16 Sept 2022 · 142 MW · 31 17 Sept 2022 · 353 MW · 34 18 Sept 2022 · 464 MW · 78 19 Sept 2022 · 850 MW · 42 20 Sept 2022 · 28 MW · 9 21 Sept 2022 · 14 MW · 3
20 Aug 26 Aug 31 Aug 5 Sept 10 Sept 15 Sept 20 Sept

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
49km/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

66% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,002 ha in 2016, 21,316 ha in 2017, 3,104 ha in 2018, 6,407 ha in 2019, 16,874 ha in 2020, 2,356 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 38,880 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 37% of the area of London (590 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
    50,544 ha reached on 20 Aug
    6.2 %

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 area0.14 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.14 hectares of 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)

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
20 Aug 23.9 °C 15 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
21 Aug 26.2 °C 10 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
22 Aug 28.5 °C 18 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
23 Aug 28.7 °C 17 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
24 Aug 28.3 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
25 Aug 28.1 °C 21 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
26 Aug 30.1 °C 17 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
27 Aug 31.1 °C 15 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
28 Aug 31.6 °C 16 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
29 Aug 32.1 °C 14 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
30 Aug 32.7 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
31 Aug 31.3 °C 16 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
1 Sept 29.0 °C 19 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
2 Sept 28.4 °C 18 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
3 Sept 28.5 °C 15 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
4 Sept 31.3 °C 16 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
5 Sept 33.8 °C 14 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
6 Sept 34.3 °C 10 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
7 Sept 34.0 °C 14 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
8 Sept 33.0 °C 14 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
9 Sept 32.9 °C 14 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
10 Sept 32.7 °C 13 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
11 Sept 33.2 °C 13 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
12 Sept 34.4 °C 9 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
13 Sept 33.8 °C 11 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
14 Sept 32.6 °C 17 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
15 Sept 31.3 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
16 Sept 31.0 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
17 Sept 32.1 °C 15 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
18 Sept 34.2 °C 12 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
19 Sept 34.0 °C 13 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
20 Sept 26.9 °C 13 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
21 Sept 29.7 °C 11 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
22 Sept after 32.7 °C 6 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
23 Sept after 34.6 °C 7 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
24 Sept after 35.8 °C 13 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
25 Sept after 35.4 °C 14 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
26 Sept after 35.0 °C 17 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
27 Sept after 35.6 °C 14 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
28 Sept after 36.7 °C 14 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
29 Sept after 34.7 °C 14 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
30 Sept after 35.1 °C 12 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
1 Oct after 36.0 °C 11 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Aug 2022
After · 28 Sept 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.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 5 September 2022 the air beside the fire reached 97 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 38: 2.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak97 µg/m³
Days over the guideline19 days
PM10139 µg/m³
Optical depth1.08
2122232425262728293031123456789101112131415161718192021222324
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 2,460Every 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?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 20 August 2022 to 21 September 2022 (33 days). The perimeter dates it from 23 August 2022 to 21 September 2022.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 59,032 hectares (590.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Ndiyona (50,544 ha, 6.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.4 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 62, 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

History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Start date: 23 August 2022 → 20 August 2022.

RSS Changes to this page

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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How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 23 August 2022 to 21 September 2022. 2,460 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.