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Sibbinda fire, September 2019 Sibbinda

Out · last detection 16 Sept 2019, 11:56 UTC

The fire started on 11 September 2019 in Sibbinda, Namibia, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,832 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 47th largest in Zambezi since 2016 (of 107 with a page). Number 27 in Namibia in 2019, of 45.

Burnt area
2,832ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
11 Sept 2019 – 16 Sept 2019
Municipalities hit
1
constituencies
Started on
11 Sept
2019
Heat detections
63
in a single hotspot: 83 MW
Danger at start
47
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
863MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

16 Sept 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Sept16 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

111213141516

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
43km/h · peak gust
6%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

35% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 995 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Sibbinda where it started
    2,848 ha reached on 11 Sept
    1.7 %

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)
11 Sept 32.0 °C 8 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
12 Sept 34.2 °C 8 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
13 Sept 35.8 °C 6 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
14 Sept 35.5 °C 6 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
15 Sept 35.1 °C 13 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
16 Sept 34.5 °C 10 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
17 Sept after 34.2 °C 14 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
18 Sept after 33.5 °C 12 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
19 Sept after 33.7 °C 12 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
20 Sept after 33.5 °C 9 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
21 Sept after 33.1 °C 10 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
22 Sept after 34.6 °C 12 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
23 Sept after 35.3 °C 10 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
24 Sept after 36.3 °C 14 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
25 Sept after 30.2 °C 30 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
26 Sept after 26.3 °C 20 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Sept 2019
After · 23 Sept 2019

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 · 63Every 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 11 September 2019 and 16 September 2019: 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 2,832 hectares (28.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Sibbinda (2,848 ha, 1.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.8 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 63, 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

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.