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Mashare fire, 20 September 2023 Mashare

Out · last detection 30 Sept 2023, 12:40 UTC

The fire started on 20 September 2023 in Mashare, Namibia, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 14,585 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 29th largest in Kavango East since 2016 (of 394 with a page). Number 11 in Namibia in 2023, of 111.

Burnt area
14,585ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
11days
20 Sept 2023 – 30 Sept 2023
Municipalities hit
1
constituencies
Started on
20 Sept
2023
Heat detections
599
in a single hotspot: 115 MW
Danger at start
65
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
6.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

30 Sept 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Sept30 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

2021222324252627282930

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
52km/h · peak gust
7%lowest humidity

It had gone 59 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

48% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,122 ha in 2016, 1,839 ha in 2017, 839 ha in 2020, 823 ha in 2021, 99 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,978 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mashare where it started
    14,647 ha reached on 19 Sept
    1.6 %

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)
19 Sept 35.3 °C 12 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
20 Sept 34.8 °C 16 % 19 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 48
21 Sept 35.7 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
22 Sept 35.2 °C 14 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
23 Sept 36.1 °C 13 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
24 Sept 36.2 °C 16 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
25 Sept 32.1 °C 10 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
26 Sept 28.1 °C 12 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
27 Sept 30.0 °C 14 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
28 Sept 33.7 °C 8 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
29 Sept 35.3 °C 10 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
30 Sept 37.3 °C 7 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
1 Oct after 37.8 °C 8 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
2 Oct after 36.9 °C 18 % 53 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 67
3 Oct after 35.1 °C 16 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
4 Oct after 34.6 °C 10 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
5 Oct after 35.6 °C 7 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
6 Oct after 35.6 °C 9 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
7 Oct after 37.8 °C 8 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
8 Oct after 39.3 °C 8 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
9 Oct after 37.6 °C 16 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
10 Oct after 37.1 °C 17 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Sept 2023
After · 7 Oct 2023

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 · 599Every 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 20 September 2023 and 30 September 2023: 11 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 14,585 hectares (145.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mashare (14,647 ha, 1.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.3 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 67, 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.