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Mashare fire, 10 August 2022 Mashare, Ndiyona

Out · last detection 25 Aug 2022, 12:59 UTC

The fire started on 10 August 2022 in Mashare, Namibia, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,940 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 79th largest in Kavango East since 2016 (of 394 with a page). Number 25 in Namibia in 2022, of 119.

Burnt area
6,940ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
16days
10 Aug 2022 – 25 Aug 2022
Municipalities hit
2
constituencies
Started on
10 Aug
2022
Heat detections
274
in a single hotspot: 76 MW
Danger at start
46
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

25 Aug 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Aug25 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

1112131415161718192021222325

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
49km/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

69% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,526 ha in 2016, 3,418 ha in 2017, 13 ha in 2018.

What happened to each town

  1. Mashare where it started
    5,516 ha reached on 11 Aug
    0.6 %
  2. Ndiyona
    1,449 ha reached on 13 Aug
    0.2 %

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 Aug 31.1 °C 10 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
11 Aug 31.3 °C 9 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
12 Aug 31.0 °C 14 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
13 Aug 30.7 °C 13 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
14 Aug 29.3 °C 12 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
15 Aug 28.2 °C 10 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
16 Aug 30.2 °C 8 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
17 Aug 31.5 °C 14 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
18 Aug 32.4 °C 9 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
19 Aug 24.3 °C 17 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
20 Aug 24.2 °C 14 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
21 Aug 26.5 °C 10 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
22 Aug 28.7 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
23 Aug 29.1 °C 16 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
24 Aug 28.6 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
25 Aug 28.4 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
26 Aug after 30.5 °C 15 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
27 Aug after 31.4 °C 13 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
28 Aug after 31.9 °C 15 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
29 Aug after 32.4 °C 14 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
30 Aug after 33.0 °C 16 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
31 Aug after 31.8 °C 17 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
1 Sept after 29.5 °C 17 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
2 Sept after 28.8 °C 17 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
3 Sept after 28.8 °C 14 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
4 Sept after 31.5 °C 15 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Aug 2022
After · 1 Sept 2022

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 · 274Every 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 August 2022 and 25 August 2022: 16 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 6,940 hectares (69.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mashare (5,516 ha, 0.6 %); Ndiyona (1,449 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.4 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 59, 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.