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Sibbinda fire, July 2020 Sibbinda

Out · last detection 4 Aug 2020, 00:08 UTC

The fire started on 29 July 2020 in Sibbinda, Namibia, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,499 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 8th largest in Zambezi since 2016 (of 107 with a page). Number 19 in Namibia in 2020, of 146.

Burnt area
7,499ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
29 Jul 2020 – 4 Aug 2020
Municipalities hit
1
constituencies
Started on
29 Jul
2020
Heat detections
186
in a single hotspot: 61 MW
Danger at start
36
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

4 Aug 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Jul4 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

2930311234

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

The weather it burned in

27°high
41km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

66% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,777 ha in 2016, 3,248 ha in 2017, 2,151 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,972 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Sibbinda where it started
    7,095 ha reached on 29 Jul
    4.2 %

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)
29 Jul 24.5 °C 24 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
30 Jul 25.7 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
31 Jul 27.0 °C 17 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
1 Aug 25.9 °C 14 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
2 Aug 25.6 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
3 Aug 24.6 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
4 Aug 26.1 °C 22 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
5 Aug after 27.8 °C 19 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
6 Aug after 28.9 °C 20 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
7 Aug after 29.9 °C 16 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
8 Aug after 28.3 °C 22 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
9 Aug after 28.7 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
10 Aug after 30.9 °C 13 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
11 Aug after 30.5 °C 13 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
12 Aug after 30.9 °C 12 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
13 Aug after 32.3 °C 9 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
14 Aug after 30.7 °C 11 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Jul 2020
After · 11 Aug 2020

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 · 186Every 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 29 July 2020 and 4 August 2020: 7 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 7,499 hectares (75.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Sibbinda (7,095 ha, 4.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 27.0 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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.