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NA · Namibia · →

Mashare fire, 20 August 2017 Mashare

Out · last detection 24 Aug 2017, 12:14 UTC

The fire started on 20 August 2017 in Mashare, Namibia, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,158 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 193th largest in Kavango East since 2016 (of 394 with a page). Number 49 in Namibia in 2017, of 123.

Burnt area
3,158ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
20 Aug 2017 – 23 Aug 2017
Municipalities hit
1
constituencies
Started on
20 Aug
2017
Heat detections
104
in a single hotspot: 71 MW
Danger at start
48
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

24 Aug 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Aug23 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

20212324

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
34km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months 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. Mashare where it started
    3,176 ha reached on 20 Aug
    0.4 %

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)
20 Aug 28.7 °C 15 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
21 Aug 29.7 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
22 Aug 31.0 °C 15 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
23 Aug 30.5 °C 13 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
24 Aug after 32.8 °C 10 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
25 Aug after 32.6 °C 11 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
26 Aug after 32.6 °C 10 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
27 Aug after 33.2 °C 12 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
28 Aug after 32.5 °C 13 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
29 Aug after 31.9 °C 15 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
30 Aug after 32.7 °C 14 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
31 Aug after 32.7 °C 13 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
1 Sept after 33.5 °C 12 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
2 Sept after 33.3 °C 12 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Aug 2017
After · 30 Aug 2017

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 · 104Every 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 Mashare fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 20 August 2017 and 23 August 2017: 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 3,158 hectares (31.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mashare (3,176 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.0 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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.