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Mashare fire, 7 September 2018 Mashare

Out · last detection 13 Sept 2018, 11:56 UTC

The fire started on 7 September 2018 in Mashare, Namibia, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 13,441 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 33th largest in Kavango East since 2016 (of 394 with a page). Number 6 in Namibia in 2018, of 83.

Burnt area
13,441ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
7 Sept 2018 – 12 Sept 2018
Municipalities hit
1
constituencies
Started on
7 Sept
2018
Heat detections
436
in a single hotspot: 146 MW
Danger at start
56
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
5.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

13 Sept 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Sept12 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

78910111213

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
43km/h · peak gust
8%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

3% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 359 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Mashare where it started
    13,537 ha reached on 6 Sept
    1.5 %

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)
6 Sept 33.5 °C 14 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
7 Sept 30.5 °C 15 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
8 Sept 28.6 °C 15 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
9 Sept 25.3 °C 12 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
10 Sept 27.2 °C 9 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
11 Sept 30.3 °C 8 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
12 Sept 32.3 °C 8 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
13 Sept after 33.5 °C 10 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
14 Sept after 33.6 °C 6 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
15 Sept after 35.2 °C 8 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
16 Sept after 36.0 °C 9 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
17 Sept after 36.1 °C 10 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
18 Sept after 36.5 °C 11 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
19 Sept after 36.1 °C 13 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
20 Sept after 33.8 °C 13 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
21 Sept after 35.0 °C 12 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
22 Sept after 35.3 °C 14 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
23 Sept after 35.1 °C 14 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 31 Aug 2018
After · 19 Sept 2018

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 · 436Every 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 7 September 2018 and 12 September 2018: 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 13,441 hectares (134.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mashare (13,537 ha, 1.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.5 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 60, 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.