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Outjo fire, 30 September 2021 Outjo, Otjiwarongo, Otavi

Out · last detection 9 Oct 2021, 12:59 UTC

The fire started on 30 September 2021 in Outjo, Namibia, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 27,251 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 4th largest in Kunene since 2016 (of 63 with a page). Number 4 in Namibia in 2021, of 175.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Outjo · 2020Outjo · 2021Outjo · 2017Outjo · 2021

Burnt area
27,251ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
30 Sept 2021 – 8 Oct 2021
Municipalities hit
3
constituencies
Started on
30 Sept
2021
Heat detections
1,016
in a single hotspot: 290 MW
Danger at start
64
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
2.0GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Sept8 Oct
9 Oct 2021

How it evolved, day by day

30 Sept 2021 · 2,458 MW · 261 1 Oct 2021 · 3,475 MW · 216 2 Oct 2021 · 1,017 MW · 78 3 Oct 2021 · 5,852 MW · 109 4 Oct 2021 · 2,879 MW · 96 5 Oct 2021 · 778 MW · 103 6 Oct 2021 · 5 MW · 5 7 Oct 2021 · 1,192 MW · 52 8 Oct 2021 · 1,884 MW · 94 9 Oct 2021 · 27 MW · 2
30 Sept 2 Oct 3 Oct 4 Oct 6 Oct 8 Oct

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
48km/h · peak gust
4%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

2% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 429 ha in 2020.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 17% of the area of London (273 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. Outjo where it started
    24,214 ha reached on 30 Sept
    3.2 %
  2. Otjiwarongo
    2,067 ha reached on 30 Sept
    0.4 %
  3. Otavi
    1,107 ha reached on 1 Oct
    0.1 %

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 area2.1 ha
Residents≈ 250

Inside the perimeter there were about 2.1 hectares of built-up land and about 250 residents (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)
30 Sept 33.6 °C 9 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
1 Oct 30.3 °C 6 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
2 Oct 29.5 °C 5 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
3 Oct 31.1 °C 4 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
4 Oct 32.5 °C 9 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
5 Oct 33.6 °C 6 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
6 Oct 34.0 °C 7 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
7 Oct 35.2 °C 15 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
8 Oct 35.4 °C 9 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
9 Oct after 36.1 °C 7 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
10 Oct after 36.3 °C 5 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
11 Oct after 36.3 °C 6 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 75
12 Oct after 36.1 °C 10 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
13 Oct after 36.3 °C 9 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
14 Oct after 36.2 °C 9 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
15 Oct after 36.1 °C 8 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 81
16 Oct after 33.6 °C 9 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
17 Oct after 34.0 °C 9 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
18 Oct after 33.7 °C 9 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 73

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Sept 2021
After · 15 Oct 2021

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 · 1,016Every 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 Outjo fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 30 September 2021 to 8 October 2021 (9 days). The perimeter dates it from 30 September 2021 to 7 October 2021.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 27,251 hectares (272.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Outjo (24,214 ha, 3.2 %); Otjiwarongo (2,067 ha, 0.4 %); Otavi (1,107 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.4 °C, humidity dropped to 4 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 67, 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. Last day with fire: 7 October 2021 → 8 October 2021.

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 30 September 2021 to 7 October 2021. 1,016 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.