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 9 October 2021 (10 days). The perimeter dates it from 3 October 2021 to 7 October 2021.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,949 hectares (69.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Otavi (5,755 ha, 0.4 %); Outjo (1,228 ha, 0.2 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 34.4 °C, humidity dropped to 5 % and gusts hit 40 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.

NA · Namibia · 2021-09-30 → 2021-10-09

Outjo fire, 30 September 2021 Otavi, Outjo

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 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,949 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 20th largest in Kunene since 2016 (of 62 with a page). Number 29 in Namibia in 2021, of 175.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Otavi · 2018 Outjo · 2021 Outjo · 2021 Outjo · 2026

Burnt area: 6,949ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 10days; 30 Sept 2021 – 9 Oct 2021
Municipalities hit: 2; constituencies
Started on: 30 Sept; 2021
Heat detections: 211; in a single hotspot: 290 MW
Danger at start: 61; Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power: 969MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Sept9 Oct

Play back 9 Oct 2021

How it evolved, day by day

30 Sept 3 Oct 5 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

34°high

40km/h · peak gust

5%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

0% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 30 ha in 2018.

30 ha Otavi fire, October 2018 2,604 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 4.4% of the area of London (69 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

Otavi

5,755 ha reached on 3 Oct

0.4 %
Outjo where it started

1,228 ha reached on 30 Sept

0.2 %

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.

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	Danger (FWI)
3 Oct	30.3 °C	5 %	40 km/h	Extreme 61
4 Oct	31.8 °C	10 %	39 km/h	Extreme 62
5 Oct	33.0 °C	6 %	34 km/h	Extreme 60
6 Oct	33.5 °C	8 %	34 km/h	Extreme 58
7 Oct	34.4 °C	19 %	34 km/h	Extreme 52
8 Oct	34.9 °C	11 %	34 km/h	Extreme 57
9 Oct	35.5 °C	7 %	35 km/h	Extreme 60
10 Oct after	35.5 °C	6 %	50 km/h	Very extreme 71
11 Oct after	35.3 °C	7 %	50 km/h	Very extreme 73
12 Oct after	35.0 °C	12 %	42 km/h	Extreme 65
13 Oct after	35.6 °C	9 %	32 km/h	Extreme 59
14 Oct after	35.4 °C	10 %	32 km/h	Extreme 55
15 Oct after	35.7 °C	9 %	43 km/h	Extreme 69
16 Oct after	33.4 °C	10 %	41 km/h	Extreme 68
17 Oct after	33.4 °C	10 %	35 km/h	Extreme 63

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 23 Sept 2021

After · 16 Oct 2021

Before After

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 · 211Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

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 9 October 2021 (10 days). The perimeter dates it from 3 October 2021 to 7 October 2021.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,949 hectares (69.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Otavi (5,755 ha, 0.4 %); Outjo (1,228 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 34.4 °C, humidity dropped to 5 % and gusts hit 40 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

26 October 2026 Last day with fire: 7 October 2021 → 9 October 2021.
26 October 2026 Start date: 3 October 2021 → 30 September 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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What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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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 3 October 2021 to 7 October 2021. 211 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.

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.

Where it burned