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Mashare fire, 10 October 2018 Mashare, Rundu Rural West

Out · last detection 15 Oct 2018, 11:56 UTC

The fire started on 10 October 2018 in Mashare, Namibia, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,953 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 146th largest in Kavango East since 2016 (of 394 with a page). Number 30 in Namibia in 2018, of 83.

Burnt area
3,953ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
10 Oct 2018 – 14 Oct 2018
Municipalities hit
2
constituencies
Started on
10 Oct
2018
Heat detections
178
in a single hotspot: 121 MW
Danger at start
56
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
2.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

15 Oct 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Oct14 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

101112131415

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
46km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.2 mm on 22 Oct.

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
    3,919 ha reached on 10 Oct
    0.4 %
  2. Rundu Rural West
    49 ha
    0.0 %

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)
10 Oct 34.2 °C 11 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
11 Oct 35.4 °C 9 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
12 Oct 36.0 °C 9 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
13 Oct 37.0 °C 9 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
14 Oct 36.0 °C 10 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
15 Oct after 35.9 °C 8 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
16 Oct after 37.2 °C 9 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
17 Oct after 37.7 °C 11 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
18 Oct after 38.1 °C 9 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
19 Oct after 37.8 °C 14 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
20 Oct after 37.8 °C 13 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
21 Oct after 35.5 °C 24 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
22 Oct after 28.2 °C 30 % 51 km/h 1.2 mm High 36

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Oct 2018
After · 21 Oct 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 · 178Every 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 10 October 2018 and 14 October 2018: 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 3,953 hectares (39.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mashare (3,919 ha, 0.4 %); Rundu Rural West (49 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.0 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 65, 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.