Skip to content
worldfires
BW · Botswana · →

Ghanzi fire, 4 October 2022 Ghanzi

Out · last detection 15 Oct 2022, 23:14 UTC

The fire started on 4 October 2022 in Ghanzi, Botswana, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 17,700 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 34th largest in Ghanzi since 2016 (of 450 with a page). Number 29 in Botswana in 2022, of 327.

Burnt area
17,700ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
13days
4 Oct 2022 – 16 Oct 2022
Municipalities hit
1
subdistricts
Started on
4 Oct
2022
Heat detections
728
in a single hotspot: 161 MW
Danger at start
54
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
8.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

15 Oct 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Oct16 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

456789101112131415

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

38°high
54km/h · peak gust
8%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 6.5 mm on 17 Oct.

This area had burned before

1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 195 ha in 2020.

What happened to each town

  1. Ghanzi where it started
    17,915 ha reached on 4 Oct
    0.2 %

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)
4 Oct 38.0 °C 9 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
5 Oct 38.1 °C 9 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 79
6 Oct 38.1 °C 9 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
7 Oct 37.3 °C 10 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
8 Oct 35.8 °C 12 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 80
9 Oct 35.5 °C 9 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
10 Oct 35.8 °C 8 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 75
11 Oct 34.3 °C 14 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
12 Oct 35.1 °C 11 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 73
13 Oct 35.7 °C 9 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
14 Oct 36.4 °C 9 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
15 Oct 36.6 °C 11 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 76
16 Oct 29.8 °C 20 % 43 km/h 0.6 mm Extreme 58
17 Oct after 26.4 °C 38 % 43 km/h 6.5 mm Low 11

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

Before · 27 Sept 2022
After · 23 Oct 2022

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 · 728Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
⬇ Download CSV Times in UTC. Each detection is a 375 m pixel: a large fire yields hundreds per pass.
Date and timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Botswana ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Ghanzi fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 October 2022 and 16 October 2022: 13 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 17,700 hectares (177.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Ghanzi (17,915 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.1 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 80, class Very 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
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy.

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.