Mashare fire, 26 July 2026 Mashare
The fire started on 26 July 2026 in Mashare, Namibia, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 27,361 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 10th largest in Kavango East since 2016 (of 394 with a page). Number 7 in Namibia in 2026, of 153.
- Burnt area
- 27,361ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 9days
- 26 Jul 2026 – 3 Aug 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- constituencies
- Started on
- 26 Jul
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 564
- in a single hotspot: 215 MW
- Danger at start
- 44
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 9.8GW
- sum of detected power
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
93% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 813 ha in 2016, 6,978 ha in 2017, 4,164 ha in 2018, 8,557 ha in 2019, 6,693 ha in 2020, 6,588 ha in 2021, 4,880 ha in 2022, 10,148 ha in 2023, 3,222 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 25,546 ha that had burned before.
- 5,954 ha Mashare fire, September 2020 16,040 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,391 ha Mashare fire, September 2023 22,848 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,688 ha Mashare fire, August 2019 8,325 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,293 ha Mashare fire, September 2021 6,783 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,005 ha Mashare fire, August 2019 10,603 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,641 ha Mashare fire, September 2024 3,417 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,228 ha Mashare fire, September 2018 7,547 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,190 ha Mashare fire, September 2023 8,792 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Mashare where it started27,573 ha reached on 26 Jul3.0 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 26 Jul | 26.1 °C | 24 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 27 Jul | 25.9 °C | 22 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 28 Jul | 26.9 °C | 19 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 29 Jul | 27.6 °C | 13 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 30 Jul | 28.9 °C | 11 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 31 Jul | 28.7 °C | 11 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 1 Aug | 27.6 °C | 14 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 2 Aug | 27.2 °C | 15 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 3 Aug | 26.6 °C | 14 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 4 Aug after | 27.2 °C | 12 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 5 Aug after | 28.4 °C | 15 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 6 Aug after | 29.4 °C | 13 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 7 Aug after | 28.3 °C | 14 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 8 Aug after | 27.3 °C | 12 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 9 Aug after | 28.1 °C | 15 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 10 Aug after | 22.9 °C | 19 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 11 Aug after | 22.7 °C | 14 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 12 Aug after | 24.5 °C | 15 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 13 Aug after | 27.0 °C | 28 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
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 1 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 57 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 35: 2.3 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 · 564Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 22,848 haMashare6 September 2023 · 13 days · 8 km away
- 20,841 haMashare6 September 2017 · 13 days · 20 km away
- 44,692 haMashare8 August 2024 · 33 days · 31 km away
- 43,677 haMashare20 August 2022 · 25 days · 32 km away
- 21,713 haMashare1 August 2026 · 18 days · 32 km away
- 43,409 haTsumkwe25 August 2026 · 14 days · 40 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Mashare fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 26 July 2026 and 3 August 2026: 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 27,361 hectares (273.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Mashare (27,573 ha, 3.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 28.9 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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.
Report an error
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.