Ghanzi fire, 8 October 2017 Ghanzi
The fire started on 8 October 2017 in Ghanzi, Botswana, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,597 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 177th largest in Ghanzi since 2016 (of 450 with a page). Number 83 in Botswana in 2017, of 196.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 4,597ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 5days
- 8 Oct 2017 – 12 Oct 2017
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- subdistricts
- Started on
- 8 Oct
- 2017
- Heat detections
- 113
- in a single hotspot: 49 MW
- Danger at start
- 51
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 183MW
- 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 one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.1 mm on 22 Oct.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
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
-
Ghanzi where it started4,655 ha reached on 8 Oct0.0 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 Oct | 32.7 °C | 12 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 9 Oct | 27.1 °C | 15 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 10 Oct | 24.9 °C | 13 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 11 Oct | 29.9 °C | 10 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 12 Oct | 33.7 °C | 10 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 13 Oct after | 35.1 °C | 9 % | 55 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 14 Oct after | 34.6 °C | 13 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 65 |
| 15 Oct after | 34.6 °C | 4 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 16 Oct after | 34.4 °C | 5 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 17 Oct after | 29.1 °C | 9 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 18 Oct after | 34.6 °C | 8 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 19 Oct after | 31.3 °C | 10 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 67 |
| 20 Oct after | 34.3 °C | 10 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 21 Oct after | 34.7 °C | 14 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 22 Oct after | 34.7 °C | 22 % | 56 km/h | 4.1 mm | High 34 |
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 · 113Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 89,223 haGhanzi29 September 2022 · 15 days · 16 km away
- 8,892 haHukunsti30 September 2022 · 6 days · 20 km away
- 11,644 haGhanzi15 October 2017 · 5 days · 27 km away
- 9,925 haHukunsti3 October 2022 · 6 days · 39 km away
- 20,082 haGhanzi27 September 2020 · 4 days · 40 km away
- 10,519 haGhanzi4 October 2021 · 7 days · 40 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Ghanzi fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 8 October 2017 and 12 October 2017: 5 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 4,597 hectares (46.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Ghanzi (4,655 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 33.7 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, class Extreme.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Botswana (geoBoundaries). 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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 113 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.
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 geoBoundaries ADM2 (Public Domain). 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.