Burned area
satellite only6,708ha
Union of 2 GWIS (Copernicus) perimeters: overlapping areas count once.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 11 Aug 2026 – 13 Aug 2026
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
NA · Namibia · –
Windhoek Rural fire, August 2026 Windhoek Rural, Windhoek West
Out · last measured on 13 Aug 2026
The fire started on 11 August 2026 in Windhoek Rural, Namibia, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,708 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
Number 35 in Namibia in 2026, of 160.
GWIS near-real-time perimeter, from the layer that changed in August 2025: this fire is not compared with fires from earlier years, because since then the GWIS layer gives more and larger perimeters.
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Fire page data · version 2026-10-24matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only3days
11 Aug 2026 to 13 Aug 2026: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 11 Aug 2026 – 13 Aug 2026
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only11 Aug 2026
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 11 Aug 2026
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Danger at the start
model44.8FWI · very high
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 44.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 11 Aug 2026, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model24.7°C · 15% RH
High of 24.7 °C and minimum humidity of 15% on 13 August 2026; gusts of 40 km/h on 13 August 2026.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 11 Aug 2026 – 13 Aug 2026
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
· reconstructed GHSLPopulation and built-up area computed
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
What was saved on 24 October 2026
Every night a snapshot of what the page shows is saved. If anything changes, it appears in the list as a log entry.
- Area
- 6,708 ha
- Dates
- 11 Aug 2026 – 13 Aug 2026
- Name
- Windhoek Rural
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/windhoek-rural-2026-08?v=2026-10-24A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire windhoek-rural-2026-08.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-08-11 | 0 | 0 | 21.5 | 1 | 12 | 14.9 | 31.3 | 0 | 44.8 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-12 | 0 | 0 | 23.8 | 4.6 | 14 | 15.6 | 34.9 | 0 | 45.8 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-13 | 0 | 0 | 24.7 | 7.7 | 15 | 18.4 | 40.3 | 0 | 49.1 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-14 | 0 | 0 | 25.3 | 7.3 | 18 | 17 | 37.4 | 0 | 47.1 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2026-08-15 | 0 | 0 | 26.4 | 6.8 | 19 | 13.1 | 30.6 | 0 | 42.8 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2026-08-16 | 0 | 0 | 27.6 | 8.6 | 16 | 10.8 | 26.6 | 0 | 40.8 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2026-08-17 | 0 | 0 | 27.8 | 7.8 | 12 | 10.3 | 27.4 | 0 | 41.1 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2026-08-18 | 0 | 0 | 28.8 | 4.1 | 8 | 11.8 | 28.8 | 0 | 46.5 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2026-08-19 | 0 | 0 | 29.2 | 7.3 | 10 | 17.6 | 38.2 | 0 | 53.5 | extremo | 0 |
| 2026-08-20 | 0 | 0 | 29.1 | 6.4 | 9 | 18.6 | 40.3 | 0 | 55 | extremo | 0 |
| 2026-08-21 | 0 | 0 | 28.9 | 9.2 | 12 | 20.1 | 42.5 | 0 | 57.1 | extremo | 0 |
| 2026-08-22 | 0 | 0 | 28.5 | 8.3 | 13 | 9.3 | 23.4 | 0 | 44.8 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2026-08-23 | 0 | 0 | 28.1 | 12.8 | 14 | 15.8 | 38.2 | 0 | 51.5 | extremo | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: GWIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0), GHSL (JRC). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
We have the GWIS perimeter for this fire, but not yet its hotspots: NASA publishes the yearly hotspot archive only once the year closes. The page picks them up automatically when they are available.
- Burnt area
- 6,708ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 3days
- 11 Aug 2026 – 13 Aug 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- constituencies
- Started on
- 11 Aug
- 2026
- Danger at start
- 45
- Very high · FWI index
Where it burned
The weather it burned in
25°high
40km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity
It had gone 44 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
28% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,327 ha in 2016, 1,012 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,887 ha that had burned before.
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
-
Windhoek Rural where it started6,539 ha0.2 %
-
183 ha0.9 %
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 2025Built-up area0.33 ha
Residents< 20
Inside the perimeter there were about 0.33 hectares of built-up land and almost nobody lived there (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)
Started with Very dry air: 81 % of the area in Namibia
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11 Aug | 21.5 °C | 12 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 12 Aug | 23.8 °C | 14 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 13 Aug | 24.7 °C | 15 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 14 Aug after | 25.3 °C | 18 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 15 Aug after | 26.4 °C | 19 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 16 Aug after | 27.6 °C | 16 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 17 Aug after | 27.8 °C | 12 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 18 Aug after | 28.8 °C | 8 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 19 Aug after | 29.2 °C | 10 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 20 Aug after | 29.1 °C | 9 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 21 Aug after | 28.9 °C | 12 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 22 Aug after | 28.5 °C | 13 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 23 Aug after | 28.1 °C | 14 % | 38 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.
↔
Before · 4 Aug 2026
After · 20 Aug 2026
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
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 13 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 12 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).
PM2.5 peak12 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1012 µg/m³
Optical depth0.15
9 Aug11 Aug13 Aug15 Aug
Good
Fair
Moderate
Poor
Very poor
Extremely poor
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)
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Windhoek Rural fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 11 August 2026 and 13 August 2026: 3 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 6,708 hectares (67.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Windhoek Rural (6,539 ha, 0.2 %); Windhoek West (183 ha, 0.9 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 24.7 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, class Very high.
- 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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version
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 from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. No 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.