Tsumkwe fire, 21 August 2026 Tsumkwe, Mashare
The fire started on 21 August 2026 in Tsumkwe, Namibia, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 43,409 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the largest fire in Otjozondjupa since 2016 (of 214 with a page). Number 6 in Namibia in 2026, of 160.
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- Burnt area
- 43,409ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 18days
- 21 Aug 2026 – 7 Sept 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- constituencies
- Started on
- 21 Aug
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 957
- in a single hotspot: 247 MW
- Danger at start
- 54
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 1.3GW
- detected power per day, on average
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
75% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 7,267 ha in 2016, 17,627 ha in 2018, 671 ha in 2019, 8,604 ha in 2020, 6,625 ha in 2021, 6,561 ha in 2022, 7,752 ha in 2023, 113 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 32,736 ha that had burned before.
- 4,005 ha Tsumkwe fire, October 2018 6,675 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,954 ha Tsumkwe fire, July 2023 9,334 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,782 ha Tsumkwe fire, August 2016 9,802 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,030 ha Mashare fire, September 2020 4,574 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,989 ha Tsumkwe fire, September 2022 14,116 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,903 ha Tsumkwe fire, September 2018 12,375 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,442 ha Tsumkwe fire, October 2023 8,141 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,227 ha Tsumkwe fire, September 2018 2,443 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Tsumkwe where it started42,743 ha reached on 21 Aug1.5 %
-
803 ha reached on 27 Aug0.1 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 0.13 hectares of built-up land and about 40 residents (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21 Aug | 30.8 °C | 14 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 22 Aug | 30.8 °C | 14 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 23 Aug | 31.8 °C | 15 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 24 Aug | 31.5 °C | 15 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 25 Aug | 30.6 °C | 18 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 26 Aug | 31.2 °C | 14 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 27 Aug | 30.2 °C | 14 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 28 Aug | 28.6 °C | 18 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 29 Aug | 28.2 °C | 18 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 30 Aug | 30.6 °C | 17 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 31 Aug | 32.8 °C | 17 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 1 Sept | 33.9 °C | 17 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 2 Sept | 32.4 °C | 18 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 3 Sept | 33.5 °C | 17 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 4 Sept | 29.9 °C | 12 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 5 Sept | 31.0 °C | 9 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 6 Sept | 32.6 °C | 10 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 7 Sept | 34.2 °C | 13 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 8 Sept after | 32.7 °C | 22 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 9 Sept after | 30.1 °C | 25 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 10 Sept after | 28.8 °C | 23 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 11 Sept after | 30.6 °C | 16 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 12 Sept after | 31.9 °C | 17 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 13 Sept after | 34.0 °C | 16 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 14 Sept after | 31.5 °C | 28 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 15 Sept after | 33.6 °C | 20 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 16 Sept after | 35.7 °C | 18 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 17 Sept after | 35.3 °C | 14 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
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 7 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 40 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 25: 1.7 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 · 957Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 21,713 haMashare1 August 2026 · 20 days · 14 km away
- 20,841 haMashare6 September 2017 · 13 days · 20 km away
- 19,762 haMashare15 September 2022 · 28 days · 27 km away
- 17,069 haTsumkwe29 August 2018 · 16 days · 37 km away
- 16,040 haMashare27 September 2020 · 10 days · 37 km away
- 27,361 haMashare26 July 2026 · 9 days · 40 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Tsumkwe fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 21 August 2026 to 7 September 2026 (18 days). The perimeter dates it from 27 August 2026 to 7 September 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 43,409 hectares (434.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Tsumkwe (42,743 ha, 1.5 %); Mashare (803 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 34.2 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 60, 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
History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Start date: 25 August 2026 → 21 August 2026.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 27 August 2026 to 7 September 2026. 957 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.