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Ghanzi fire, 25 August 2023 Ghanzi, Kweneng South, Hukunsti

Out · last detection 14 Sept 2023, 00:11 UTC

The fire started on 25 August 2023 in Ghanzi, Botswana, and satellites saw it burning for 20 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 149,587 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

This page is probably a fire complex, not a single fire. GWIS merges into one perimeter the fires that touch over weeks, which in large burning seasons can join dozens of separate fires. The total area is reliable; the origin and dates refer to the whole complex.

Other fire pages in the same area and on the same dates:

It is the largest fire in Ghanzi since 2016 (of 450 with a page). The largest in Botswana in 2023, of 381.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Ghanzi · 2022

Burnt area
149,587ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
20days
25 Aug 2023 – 13 Sept 2023
Municipalities hit
3
subdistricts
Started on
25 Aug
2023
Heat detections
7,859
in a single hotspot: 444 MW
Danger at start
67
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
6.0GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 25 Aug13 Sept
14 Sept 2023

How it evolved, day by day

25 Aug 2023 · 22 MW · 20 26 Aug 2023 · 90 MW · 26 27 Aug 2023 · 882 MW · 36 28 Aug 2023 · 831 MW · 62 29 Aug 2023 · 93 MW · 20 30 Aug 2023 · 197 MW · 29 31 Aug 2023 · 5,817 MW · 508 1 Sept 2023 · 46,770 MW · 1974 2 Sept 2023 · 47,075 MW · 2414 3 Sept 2023 · 9,076 MW · 1237 4 Sept 2023 · 5,202 MW · 502 5 Sept 2023 · 2,426 MW · 312 6 Sept 2023 · 574 MW · 92 7 Sept 2023 · 2,846 MW · 202 8 Sept 2023 · 1,444 MW · 126 9 Sept 2023 · 1,209 MW · 178 10 Sept 2023 · 256 MW · 39 11 Sept 2023 · 765 MW · 69 12 Sept 2023 · 40 MW · 6 13 Sept 2023 · 10 MW · 5 14 Sept 2023 · 3 MW · 2
25 Aug 28 Aug 31 Aug 2 Sept 3 Sept 6 Sept 9 Sept 12 Sept

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
62km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

19% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,505 ha in 2020, 15,396 ha in 2021, 10,918 ha in 2022.

How big is it?

20 km
It burned almost the same area as London (1,496 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Ghanzi where it started
    138,424 ha reached on 25 Aug
    1.2 %
  2. Kweneng South
    9,060 ha reached on 2 Sept
    0.3 %
  3. Hukunsti
    3,565 ha reached on 2 Sept
    0.1 %

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 2025
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable 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)

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
25 Aug 33.3 °C 11 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
26 Aug 22.4 °C 13 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
27 Aug 24.2 °C 11 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
28 Aug 23.7 °C 29 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
29 Aug 23.6 °C 20 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
30 Aug 24.8 °C 22 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
31 Aug 27.8 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
1 Sept 31.8 °C 13 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
2 Sept 32.5 °C 10 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
3 Sept 33.7 °C 9 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
4 Sept 33.7 °C 11 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
5 Sept 33.0 °C 14 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
6 Sept 30.7 °C 12 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
7 Sept 32.6 °C 10 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
8 Sept 34.3 °C 11 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
9 Sept 35.2 °C 12 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
10 Sept 35.4 °C 12 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
11 Sept 23.0 °C 15 % 62 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 75
12 Sept 21.7 °C 13 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
13 Sept 26.3 °C 20 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
14 Sept after 30.3 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
15 Sept after 34.2 °C 8 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
16 Sept after 32.8 °C 7 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
17 Sept after 31.0 °C 9 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
18 Sept after 34.2 °C 12 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
19 Sept after 33.9 °C 14 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
20 Sept after 32.5 °C 10 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
21 Sept after 34.9 °C 9 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
22 Sept after 35.9 °C 11 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
23 Sept after 34.5 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 18 Aug 2023
After · 20 Sept 2023

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 · Copernicus

On 4 September 2023 the air beside the fire reached 215 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 132: 8.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak215 µg/m³
Days over the guideline9 days
PM10306 µg/m³
Optical depth2.33
252627282930311234567
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)

Detections table · 7,859Every 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?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 25 August 2023 to 13 September 2023 (20 days). The perimeter dates it from 27 August 2023 to 13 September 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 149,587 hectares (1,495.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Ghanzi (138,424 ha, 1.2 %); Kweneng South (9,060 ha, 0.3 %); Hukunsti (3,565 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.4 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 62 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 75, 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

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

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.

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How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 9 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 27 August 2023 to 13 September 2023. 7,859 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.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.