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Mashare fire, 18 August 2019 Mashare, Ndiyona

Out · last detection 26 Aug 2019, 11:49 UTC

The fire started on 18 August 2019 in Mashare, Namibia, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,013 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 211th largest in Kavango East since 2016 (of 394 with a page). Number 25 in Namibia in 2019, of 45.

Burnt area
3,013ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
18 Aug 2019 – 26 Aug 2019
Municipalities hit
2
constituencies
Started on
18 Aug
2019
Heat detections
84
in a single hotspot: 53 MW
Danger at start
48
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
821MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

26 Aug 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Aug26 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

181920212223242526

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

The weather it burned in

28°high
46km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

5% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 97 ha in 2017, 64 ha in 2018.

What happened to each town

  1. Mashare where it started
    2,849 ha reached on 18 Aug
    0.3 %
  2. Ndiyona
    187 ha reached on 23 Aug
    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)
18 Aug 28.5 °C 14 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
19 Aug 27.6 °C 13 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
20 Aug 27.5 °C 15 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
21 Aug 27.2 °C 16 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
22 Aug 25.8 °C 16 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
23 Aug 25.9 °C 13 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
24 Aug 26.8 °C 12 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
25 Aug 27.3 °C 9 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
26 Aug 27.7 °C 13 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
27 Aug after 30.1 °C 13 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
28 Aug after 31.9 °C 15 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
29 Aug after 33.3 °C 15 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
30 Aug after 34.1 °C 13 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
31 Aug after 29.5 °C 7 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
1 Sept after 25.7 °C 7 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
2 Sept after 28.9 °C 9 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
3 Sept after 30.6 °C 19 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
4 Sept after 32.4 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
5 Sept after 33.8 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 11 Aug 2019
After · 2 Sept 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 · 84Every 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 18 August 2019 and 26 August 2019: 9 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 3,013 hectares (30.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mashare (2,849 ha, 0.3 %); Ndiyona (187 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 28.5 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, 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.