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Sibbinda fire, May 2016 Sibbinda

Out · last detection 16 May 2016, 12:34 UTC

The fire started on 10 May 2016 in Sibbinda, Namibia, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,759 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 49th largest in Zambezi since 2016 (of 107 with a page). Number 72 in Namibia in 2016, of 108.

Burnt area
2,759ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
10 May 2016 – 15 May 2016
Municipalities hit
1
constituencies
Started on
10 May
2016
Heat detections
69
in a single hotspot: 113 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

16 May 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 May15 May

How it evolved, day by day

101112131516

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
39km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 34 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Sibbinda where it started
    2,616 ha reached on 10 May
    1.6 %

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)
10 May 27.6 °C 33 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
11 May 28.3 °C 28 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
12 May 28.8 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
13 May 29.6 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
14 May 31.3 °C 22 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
15 May 30.1 °C 26 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
16 May after 29.1 °C 26 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
17 May after 29.0 °C 27 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
18 May after 28.1 °C 30 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
19 May after 27.9 °C 30 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
20 May after 27.0 °C 30 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
21 May after 24.4 °C 34 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
22 May after 24.7 °C 32 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
23 May after 25.3 °C 31 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
24 May after 24.8 °C 30 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
25 May after 26.1 °C 25 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 30

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 May 2016
After · 22 May 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 · 69Every 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 Sibbinda fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 10 May 2016 and 15 May 2016: 6 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 2,759 hectares (27.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Sibbinda (2,616 ha, 1.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.3 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, 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

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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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.