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Senqu fire, 6 September 2022 Senqu

Out · last detection 8 Sept 2022, 11:53 UTC

The fire started on 6 September 2022 in Senqu, South Africa, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,072 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 25th largest in Eastern Cape since 2016 (of 185 with a page). Number 22 in South Africa in 2022, of 143.

Burnt area
6,072ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
6 Sept 2022 – 9 Sept 2022
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
6 Sept
2022
Heat detections
168
in a single hotspot: 269 MW
Danger at start
26
High · FWI index
Energy released
3.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

8 Sept 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Sept9 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

678

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

The weather it burned in

22°high
62km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.5 mm on 12 Sept.

This area had burned before

0% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 9 ha in 2020.

What happened to each town

  1. Senqu where it started
    6,110 ha reached on 6 Sept
    0.8 %

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.

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)
6 Sept 15.4 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
7 Sept 20.4 °C 17 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
8 Sept 22.1 °C 16 % 62 km/h 0.2 mm High 35
9 Sept 22.3 °C 15 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
10 Sept after 23.1 °C 7 % 68 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
11 Sept after 20.7 °C 20 % 51 km/h 0.6 mm High 29
12 Sept after 10.6 °C 49 % 30 km/h 2.5 mm Very low 4

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 30 Aug 2022
After · 16 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.

Detections table · 168Every 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 Senqu fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 6 September 2022 and 9 September 2022: 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 6,072 hectares (60.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Senqu (6,110 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 22.3 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 62 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 35, class High.
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.