Mashare fire, 1 August 2026 Mashare
The fire started on 1 August 2026 in Mashare, Namibia, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 13,245 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 35th largest in Kavango East since 2016 (of 394 with a page). Number 19 in Namibia in 2026, of 153.
- Burnt area
- 13,245ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 11days
- 1 Aug 2026 – 11 Aug 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- constituencies
- Started on
- 1 Aug
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 193
- in a single hotspot: 85 MW
- Danger at start
- 47
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 2.1GW
- 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
84% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,313 ha in 2017, 6,074 ha in 2018, 3,844 ha in 2021, 722 ha in 2022, 6,235 ha in 2023, 1,154 ha in 2024, 210 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 11,070 ha that had burned before.
- 5,271 ha Mashare fire, September 2023 22,848 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,700 ha Mashare fire, September 2018 13,441 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,030 ha Mashare fire, September 2021 11,460 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,540 ha Mashare fire, September 2018 7,547 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 936 ha Mashare fire, September 2023 8,887 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 809 ha Mashare fire, August 2017 2,092 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 455 ha Mashare fire, August 2017 3,154 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 408 ha Mashare fire, August 2024 44,692 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Mashare where it started13,341 ha reached on 1 Aug1.4 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Aug | 27.6 °C | 14 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 2 Aug | 27.2 °C | 15 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 3 Aug | 26.7 °C | 14 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 4 Aug | 27.3 °C | 12 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 5 Aug | 28.5 °C | 15 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 6 Aug | 29.3 °C | 13 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 7 Aug | 28.2 °C | 14 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 8 Aug | 27.4 °C | 11 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 9 Aug | 28.1 °C | 13 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 10 Aug | 23.4 °C | 20 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 11 Aug | 23.3 °C | 13 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 12 Aug after | 24.6 °C | 15 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 13 Aug after | 27.2 °C | 28 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 14 Aug after | 26.9 °C | 28 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 15 Aug after | 26.7 °C | 26 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 16 Aug after | 26.2 °C | 17 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 17 Aug after | 27.7 °C | 13 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 18 Aug after | 29.6 °C | 12 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 19 Aug after | 31.4 °C | 12 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 20 Aug after | 31.2 °C | 13 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 21 Aug after | 30.7 °C | 14 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
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 · 193Every 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?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 August 2026 and 11 August 2026: 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 13,245 hectares (132.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Mashare (13,341 ha, 1.4 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 29.3 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, 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.