Tsumkwe fire, 7 August 2022 Tsumkwe
The fire started on 7 August 2022 in Tsumkwe, Namibia, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,191 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 190th largest in Otjozondjupa since 2016 (of 212 with a page). Number 108 in Namibia in 2022, of 119.
- Burnt area
- 2,191ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 4days
- 7 Aug 2022 – 10 Aug 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- constituencies
- Started on
- 7 Aug
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 34
- in a single hotspot: 158 MW
- Energy released
- 16MW
- 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.
This area had burned before
64% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 983 ha in 2018, 886 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,412 ha that had burned before.
- 280 ha Mashare fire, September 2020 4,574 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 97 ha Tsumkwe fire, September 2020 2,255 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 80 ha Tsumkwe fire, August 2018 9,201 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 67 ha Tsumkwe fire, October 2018 8,161 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 56 ha Tsumkwe fire, August 2018 2,593 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Tsumkwe where it started2,197 ha reached on 11 Aug0.1 %
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.
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.
Detections table · 34Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 43,409 haTsumkwe25 August 2026 · 14 days · 7 km away
- 21,713 haMashare1 August 2026 · 18 days · 8 km away
- 20,841 haMashare6 September 2017 · 13 days · 19 km away
- 19,762 haMashare22 September 2022 · 19 days · 20 km away
- 17,069 haTsumkwe29 August 2018 · 9 days · 29 km away
- 27,361 haMashare26 July 2026 · 9 days · 39 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Tsumkwe fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 7 August 2022 and 10 August 2022: 4 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 2,191 hectares (21.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Tsumkwe (2,197 ha, 0.1 %).
- 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.