Mashare fire, 19 August 2022 Mashare
The fire started on 19 August 2022 in Mashare, Namibia, and satellites saw it burning for 26 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 43,677 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 7th largest in Kavango East since 2016 (of 394 with a page). Number 2 in Namibia in 2022, of 119.
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- Burnt area
- 43,677ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 26days
- 19 Aug 2022 – 13 Sept 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- constituencies
- Started on
- 19 Aug
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 1,879
- in a single hotspot: 207 MW
- Danger at start
- 58
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 885MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
83% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 13,506 ha in 2016, 9,316 ha in 2017, 10,747 ha in 2018, 10,202 ha in 2019, 12,825 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 36,377 ha that had burned before.
- 6,909 ha Mashare fire, September 2019 14,917 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 6,022 ha Mashare fire, September 2017 14,682 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,304 ha Mashare fire, September 2016 10,674 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,850 ha Mashare fire, September 2020 12,383 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,678 ha Mashare fire, August 2020 5,112 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,407 ha Mashare fire, October 2018 4,379 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,090 ha Mashare fire, September 2016 7,826 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,187 ha Mashare fire, August 2016 8,968 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Mashare where it started43,940 ha reached on 19 Aug4.8 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2020Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19 Aug | 23.9 °C | 16 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 20 Aug | 23.9 °C | 14 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 21 Aug | 25.9 °C | 9 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 22 Aug | 28.2 °C | 17 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 23 Aug | 28.6 °C | 16 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 24 Aug | 28.5 °C | 18 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 25 Aug | 28.5 °C | 19 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 26 Aug | 30.6 °C | 13 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 27 Aug | 31.5 °C | 13 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 28 Aug | 32.0 °C | 14 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 29 Aug | 32.5 °C | 12 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 30 Aug | 32.8 °C | 15 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 31 Aug | 31.9 °C | 16 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 1 Sept | 29.5 °C | 16 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 2 Sept | 29.1 °C | 15 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 3 Sept | 29.1 °C | 12 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 4 Sept | 31.0 °C | 12 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 5 Sept | 33.2 °C | 11 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 6 Sept | 34.2 °C | 9 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 7 Sept | 34.3 °C | 12 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 8 Sept | 33.5 °C | 13 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 9 Sept | 33.6 °C | 11 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 10 Sept | 32.8 °C | 12 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 11 Sept | 33.5 °C | 9 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 12 Sept | 34.4 °C | 9 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 13 Sept | 33.8 °C | 8 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 14 Sept after | 32.6 °C | 15 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 67 |
| 15 Sept after | 32.2 °C | 12 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 16 Sept after | 31.1 °C | 12 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 17 Sept after | 32.0 °C | 13 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 18 Sept after | 34.2 °C | 12 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 19 Sept after | 33.5 °C | 10 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 20 Sept after | 27.5 °C | 11 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 67 |
| 21 Sept after | 30.4 °C | 9 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 22 Sept after | 34.0 °C | 5 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 23 Sept after | 35.0 °C | 6 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 18 August 2022 the air beside the fire reached 110 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 57: 3.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)
Detections table · 1,879Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Mashare fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 19 August 2022 to 13 September 2022 (26 days). The perimeter dates it from 20 August 2022 to 13 September 2022.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 43,677 hectares (436.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Mashare (43,940 ha, 4.8 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 34.4 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 64, 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
History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Start date: 20 August 2022 → 19 August 2022.
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.
Report an error
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 6 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 20 August 2022 to 13 September 2022. 1,879 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.