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Phumelela fire, September 2016 Newcastle, Phumelela, Dr Pixley Ka Isaka Seme

Out · last detection 4 Sept 2016, 12:49 UTC

The fire started on 1 September 2016 in Phumelela, South Africa, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,047 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 87th largest in Free State since 2016 (of 91 with a page). Number 69 in South Africa in 2016, of 71.

Burnt area
2,047ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
1 Sept 2016 – 4 Sept 2016
Municipalities hit
3
municipalities
Started on
1 Sept
2016
Heat detections
56
in a single hotspot: 263 MW
Energy released
1.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

4 Sept 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Sept4 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

134

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

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Newcastle
    1,257 ha reached on 3 Sept
    0.7 %
  2. Phumelela where it started
    676 ha reached on 1 Sept
    0.1 %
  3. Dr Pixley Ka Isaka Seme
    119 ha reached on 1 Sept
    0.0 %

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

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Aug 2016
After · 11 Sept 2016

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 · 56Every 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 South Africa ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Phumelela fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 September 2016 and 4 September 2016: 4 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 2,047 hectares (20.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Newcastle (1,257 ha, 0.7 %); Phumelela (676 ha, 0.1 %); Dr Pixley Ka Isaka Seme (119 ha, 0.0 %).
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of South Africa (geoBoundaries). 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.

Emergency number: 10177 · 112

Satellite cross-check

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
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy. This is not an emergency service: if there is a fire now, call 10177 · 112.

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 geoBoundaries ADM3 (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY 3.0 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.