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NA · Namibia · →

Mashare fire, October 2023 Mashare

Out · last detection 21 Oct 2023, 00:16 UTC

The fire started on 16 October 2023 in Mashare, Namibia, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,103 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 200th largest in Kavango East since 2016 (of 394 with a page). Number 64 in Namibia in 2023, of 111.

Burnt area
3,103ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
16 Oct 2023 – 21 Oct 2023
Municipalities hit
1
constituencies
Started on
16 Oct
2023
Heat detections
156
in a single hotspot: 261 MW
Danger at start
60
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
2.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

21 Oct 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Oct21 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

161718192021

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
45km/h · peak gust
6%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

35% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,093 ha in 2020.

What happened to each town

  1. Mashare where it started
    3,119 ha reached on 16 Oct
    0.3 %

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)
16 Oct 35.9 °C 7 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
17 Oct 36.0 °C 9 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
18 Oct 36.6 °C 6 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
19 Oct 35.8 °C 11 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
20 Oct 36.0 °C 14 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
21 Oct 37.0 °C 14 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
22 Oct after 37.7 °C 12 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
23 Oct after 38.5 °C 12 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
24 Oct after 39.6 °C 9 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
25 Oct after 39.0 °C 12 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
26 Oct after 37.9 °C 16 % 34 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 56
27 Oct after 37.0 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.2 mm Extreme 59
28 Oct after 36.6 °C 17 % 20 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 48
29 Oct after 36.9 °C 15 % 26 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 48
30 Oct after 35.7 °C 22 % 40 km/h 0.5 mm Extreme 59
31 Oct after 35.6 °C 21 % 39 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.

Before · 9 Oct 2023
After · 28 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 · 156Every 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 16 October 2023 and 21 October 2023: 6 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 3,103 hectares (31.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mashare (3,119 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.0 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 68, 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.