Ndiyona fire, 17 July 2026 Ndiyona
The fire started on 17 July 2026 in Ndiyona, Namibia, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,553 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 52th largest in Kavango East since 2016 (of 394 with a page). Number 24 in Namibia in 2026, of 160.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 9,553ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 13days
- 17 Jul 2026 – 29 Jul 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- constituencies
- Started on
- 17 Jul
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 170
- in a single hotspot: 36 MW
- Danger at start
- 43
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 110MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 26 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
89% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,178 ha in 2016, 1,340 ha in 2017, 3,689 ha in 2019, 2,498 ha in 2020, 3,467 ha in 2022, 5,471 ha in 2023, 938 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 8,541 ha that had burned before.
- 3,998 ha Ndiyona fire, September 2023 13,472 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,689 ha Ndiyona fire, September 2019 74,641 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,835 ha Ndiyona fire, September 2020 2,798 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,670 ha Ndiyona fire, June 2022 5,568 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,002 ha Ndiyona fire, September 2016 6,423 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 981 ha Ndiyona fire, June 2022 6,336 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 917 ha Ndiyona fire, September 2016 3,315 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 816 ha Ndiyona fire, July 2022 13,273 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Ndiyona where it started9,613 ha reached on 17 Jul1.2 %
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 2025Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17 Jul | 27.5 °C | 13 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 18 Jul | 27.2 °C | 11 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 19 Jul | 28.2 °C | 12 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 20 Jul | 27.8 °C | 10 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 21 Jul | 28.8 °C | 10 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 22 Jul | 29.8 °C | 13 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 23 Jul | 29.3 °C | 17 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 24 Jul | 28.6 °C | 18 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 25 Jul | 28.0 °C | 17 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 26 Jul | 26.1 °C | 25 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 27 Jul | 26.0 °C | 22 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 28 Jul | 27.0 °C | 18 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 29 Jul | 27.7 °C | 13 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 30 Jul after | 29.1 °C | 11 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 31 Jul after | 28.9 °C | 11 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 1 Aug after | 27.6 °C | 14 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 2 Aug after | 27.3 °C | 15 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 3 Aug after | 26.8 °C | 15 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 4 Aug after | 27.3 °C | 12 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 5 Aug after | 28.6 °C | 14 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 6 Aug after | 29.3 °C | 13 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 7 Aug after | 28.4 °C | 14 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 8 Aug after | 27.4 °C | 12 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 29 July 2026 the air beside the fire reached 52 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 28: 1.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 170Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 74,641 haNdiyona14 September 2019 · 27 days · 16 km away
- 65,633 haNdiyona23 August 2026 · 27 days · 20 km away
- 20,698 haMashare24 August 2026 · 21 days · 25 km away
- 25,582 haNdiyona16 September 2023 · 17 days · 26 km away
- 24,753 haNdiyona8 October 2017 · 15 days · 31 km away
- 56,605 haMashare24 September 2020 · 17 days · 39 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Ndiyona fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 17 July 2026 to 29 July 2026 (13 days). The perimeter dates it from 18 July 2026 to 29 July 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 9,553 hectares (95.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Ndiyona (9,613 ha, 1.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 29.8 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, class Very high.
- 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.
- Start date: 18 July 2026 → 17 July 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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 18 July 2026 to 29 July 2026. 170 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 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.