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uPhongolo fire, June 2019 uPhongolo

Out · last detection 4 Jul 2019, 11:40 UTC

The fire started on 30 June 2019 in uPhongolo, South Africa, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,068 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 11th largest in KwaZulu-Natal since 2016 (of 171 with a page). Number 11 in South Africa in 2019, of 130.

Burnt area
6,068ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
30 Jun 2019 – 4 Jul 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
30 Jun
2019
Heat detections
396
in a single hotspot: 40 MW
Danger at start
36
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

4 Jul 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Jun4 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

30124

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

The weather it burned in

30°high
53km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 36 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. uPhongolo where it started
    6,091 ha reached on 30 Jun
    2.0 %

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.

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)
30 Jun 30.1 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
1 Jul 29.4 °C 21 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
2 Jul 24.8 °C 21 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
3 Jul 27.0 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
4 Jul 26.6 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
5 Jul after 24.4 °C 20 % 71 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
6 Jul after 24.8 °C 35 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
7 Jul after 29.8 °C 12 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
8 Jul after 23.9 °C 45 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
9 Jul after 27.2 °C 29 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
10 Jul after 29.7 °C 22 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
11 Jul after 28.7 °C 30 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
12 Jul after 28.2 °C 23 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
13 Jul after 25.0 °C 44 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
14 Jul after 25.9 °C 43 % 34 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 · 23 Jun 2019
After · 11 Jul 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 · 396Every 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 uPhongolo fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 30 June 2019 and 4 July 2019: 5 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 6,068 hectares (60.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered uPhongolo (6,091 ha, 2.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.1 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, class Very 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.