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BW · Botswana · –

Ghanzi fire, 25 August 2023 Ghanzi

Out · last detection 28 Aug 2023, 12:58 UTC

The fire started on 25 August 2023 in Ghanzi, Botswana, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,709 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 307th largest in Ghanzi since 2016 (of 416 with a page). Number 243 in Botswana in 2023, of 381.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Ghanzi · 2021Ghanzi · 2024Ghanzi · 2021Ghanzi · 2021

Burnt area
2,709ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
25 Aug 2023 – 28 Aug 2023
Municipalities hit
1
subdistricts
Started on
25 Aug
2023
Heat detections
114
in a single hotspot: 122 MW
Danger at start
62
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
870MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 25 Aug28 Aug
28 Aug 2023

How it evolved, day by day

25 Aug 2023 · 27 MW · 16 26 Aug 2023 · 106 MW · 23 27 Aug 2023 · 3,344 MW · 74 28 Aug 2023 · 4 MW · 1
25 Aug 26 Aug 27 Aug 28 Aug

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
50km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

48% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,305 ha in 2021.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 1.7% of the area of London (27 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
    2,726 ha reached on 25 Aug
    0.0 %

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)

Started with Very dry air: 63 % of the area in Botswana 60 days without rain: 71 % of the area in Botswana

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
25 Aug 34.2 °C 14 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
26 Aug 25.1 °C 10 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
27 Aug 25.8 °C 14 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
28 Aug 23.7 °C 30 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
29 Aug after 24.5 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
30 Aug after 25.7 °C 23 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
31 Aug after 28.0 °C 18 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
1 Sept after 31.9 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
2 Sept after 33.0 °C 10 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
3 Sept after 33.8 °C 11 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
4 Sept after 34.6 °C 12 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
5 Sept after 34.6 °C 13 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
6 Sept after 33.4 °C 12 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
7 Sept after 34.6 °C 14 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 62.3, a minimum humidity of 14% and more than two months without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 38.

FWI at the start 62.3
Minimum humidity 14 %
Days without rain 60+
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Ghanzi fire, September 2021
3,330 ha 1 day FWI 63.1 Min. humidity 14 % 99 km away, in 2021

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.8 mm on 30 Sept.

See its page Compare with this fire

What happened to them

3 days
median duration
4,433 ha
median area
21 %
went past 10,000 ha
2.2 mm
rain at the end (median; 11 of 38 had it)

It stayed below its twins: 2,709 ha against a median of 4,433 ha. It lasted 4 days, against 3 days.

In 27 of 38, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.2 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

—first rain
—no rain in ten days
50km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 28 Aug, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 11 of 38, with a median of 2.2 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 18 Aug 2023
After · 4 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 25 August 2023 the air beside the fire reached 168 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 49: 3.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak168 µg/m³
Days over the guideline4 days
PM10239 µg/m³
Optical depth1.26
24 Aug26 Aug28 Aug30 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)

Detections table · 114Every 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 28 August 2023 (4 days). The perimeter dates it from 26 August 2023 to 27 August 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,709 hectares (27.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Ghanzi (2,726 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.2 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 62, 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 38. Their median duration was 3 days and their median area 4,433 ha; 21 % went past 10,000 ha. In 27 of 38, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.2 mm.

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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 27 August 2023 → 28 August 2023.
  2. Start date: 26 August 2023 → 25 August 2023.

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.

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How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 26 August 2023 to 27 August 2023. 114 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.