Burned area
satellite only16,779ha
Perimeter published by GWIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 16 Aug 2017 – 21 Aug 2017
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
BW · Botswana · –
Ngamiland West fire, 16 August 2017 Ngamiland East, Ngamiland West
Out · last detection 22 Aug 2017, 12:52 UTC
The fire started on 16 August 2017 in Ngamiland West, Botswana, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 16,779 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 33th largest in North-West District since 2016 (of 513 with a page). Number 21 in Botswana in 2017, of 196.
Use this data
Compare with…
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-10-27matches 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 only6days
16 Aug 2017 to 21 Aug 2017: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 22 Aug 2017, 12:52 UTC
+− 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 only16 Aug 2017
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 16 Aug 2017
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only591
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 76 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 16 Aug 2017 – 21 Aug 2017
+− cross-check
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
The worst day
satellite only4,134MW
Total radiative power on 17 August 2017; hotspots that day: 347.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 17 Aug 2017
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model44.5FWI · very high
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 60.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 16 Aug 2017, 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
model30.2°C · 14% RH
High of 30.2 °C and minimum humidity of 14% on 16 August 2017; gusts of 39 km/h on 17 August 2017.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 16 Aug 2017 – 21 Aug 2017
- 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
-
logLast day with fire: 20 August 2017 → 21 August 2017.
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
· reconstructed GHSLPopulation and built-up area computed
What was saved on 27 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
- 16,779 ha
- Dates
- 16 Aug 2017 – 21 Aug 2017
- Name
- Ngamiland West
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/ngamiland-west-2017-08-4?v=2026-10-27A 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 ngamiland-west-2017-08-4.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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-08-16 | 16 | 243 | 30.2 | 9.2 | 14 | 16.6 | 34.9 | 0 | 44.5 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2017-08-17 | 347 | 4,134 | 22.9 | 10.2 | 19 | 19.8 | 39.2 | 0 | 45.7 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2017-08-18 | 104 | 536 | 21.4 | 4.7 | 16 | 18.7 | 39.2 | 0 | 44.9 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2017-08-19 | 72 | 267 | 25.7 | 3.1 | 21 | 15.5 | 33.1 | 0 | 41.2 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2017-08-20 | 25 | 98 | 27.5 | 9.6 | 29 | 15.9 | 33.1 | 0 | 38.1 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2017-08-21 | 12 | 61 | 29 | 11.3 | 23 | 14.4 | 30.6 | 0 | 37 | alto | 1 |
| 2017-08-22 | 15 | 134 | 30.6 | 11.1 | 16 | 10.6 | 22 | 0 | 37.7 | alto | 0 |
| 2017-08-23 | 0 | 0 | 28.5 | 11.9 | 12 | 16.5 | 32.4 | 0 | 46 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2017-08-24 | 0 | 0 | 31.4 | 5.9 | 12 | 11.5 | 17.3 | 0 | 42.9 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2017-08-25 | 0 | 0 | 32.3 | 9.5 | 10 | 14.4 | 25.2 | 0 | 48.5 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2017-08-26 | 0 | 0 | 33.2 | 13.6 | 8 | 15.8 | 26.6 | 0 | 53 | extremo | 0 |
| 2017-08-27 | 0 | 0 | 32.9 | 13.6 | 15 | 16.3 | 31.7 | 0 | 53.2 | extremo | 0 |
| 2017-08-28 | 0 | 0 | 32 | 17.7 | 17 | 19.6 | 41.8 | 0 | 55.3 | extremo | 0 |
| 2017-08-29 | 0 | 0 | 31.6 | 15.8 | 15 | 16.6 | 35.6 | 0 | 51.9 | extremo | 0 |
| 2017-08-30 | 0 | 0 | 32.5 | 13.4 | 17 | 11.3 | 22.3 | 0 | 45.8 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2017-08-31 | 0 | 0 | 33.4 | 12.9 | 14 | 18.1 | 39.2 | 0 | 53.9 | 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
- Burnt area
- 16,779ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 6days
- 16 Aug 2017 – 21 Aug 2017
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- subdistricts
- Started on
- 16 Aug
- 2017
- Heat detections
- 591
- in a single hotspot: 76 MW
- Danger at start
- 44
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 782MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
16 Aug21 Aug
22 Aug 2017
How it evolved, day by day
17 Aug
20 Aug
22 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
30°high
39km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
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
-
13,572 ha reached on 17 Aug0.3 %
-
Ngamiland West where it started3,370 ha reached on 16 Aug0.1 %
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 2015Built-up area0.14 ha
Residents< 20
Inside the perimeter there were about 0.14 hectares of built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2015, 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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16 Aug | 30.2 °C | 14 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 17 Aug | 22.9 °C | 19 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 18 Aug | 21.4 °C | 16 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 19 Aug | 25.7 °C | 21 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 20 Aug | 27.5 °C | 29 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 21 Aug | 29.0 °C | 23 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 22 Aug after | 30.6 °C | 16 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 23 Aug after | 28.5 °C | 12 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 24 Aug after | 31.4 °C | 12 % | 17 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 25 Aug after | 32.3 °C | 10 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 26 Aug after | 33.2 °C | 8 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 27 Aug after | 32.9 °C | 15 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 28 Aug after | 32.0 °C | 17 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 29 Aug after | 31.6 °C | 15 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 30 Aug after | 32.5 °C | 17 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 31 Aug after | 33.4 °C | 14 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 44.5, a minimum humidity of 14% and more than two months without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 15.
FWI at the start
44.5
Minimum humidity
14 %
Days without rain
60+
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Ngamiland West fire, 16 August 2017
16,779 ha
6 days
FWI 44.5
Min. humidity 14 %
Ngamiland East fire, July 2019
10,029 ha
11 days
FWI 44.5
Min. humidity 13 %
87 km away, in 2019
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Ngamiland East fire, August 2023
3,622 ha
5 days
FWI 43.5
Min. humidity 15 %
51 km away, in 2023
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Ngamiland West fire, August 2021
22,199 ha
12 days
FWI 42.6
Min. humidity 14 %
106 km away, in 2021
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Ngamiland East fire, September 2022
2,542 ha
3 days
FWI 46.3
Min. humidity 13 %
63 km away, in 2022
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Ngamiland West fire, August 2021
14,733 ha
10 days
FWI 40.8
Min. humidity 14 %
33 km away, in 2021
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
What happened to them
- 5 days
- median duration
- 3,837 ha
- median area
- 33 %
- went past 10,000 ha
- —
- rain at the end (median; 0 of 15 had it)
It was 4.4 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 6 days, against 5 days.
Only 1 of its 15 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In none of them did 1 mm fall in the ten days after the end: they all went out without rain.
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
39km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 21 Aug, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. None of its 15 twins had rain when they ended.
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.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 9 Aug 2017
After · 28 Aug 2017
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.
Detections table · 591Every 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 time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 22,871 haNgamiland East13 September 2026 · 6 days · 0 km away
- 24,938 haNgamiland West17 August 2017 · 17 days · 27 km away
- 21,100 haNgamiland West4 September 2017 · 8 days · 32 km away
- 14,733 haNgamiland West20 August 2021 · 10 days · 33 km away
- 25,054 haNgamiland West10 October 2021 · 9 days · 40 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Ngamiland West fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 16 August 2017 to 21 August 2017 (6 days). The perimeter dates it from 16 August 2017 to 20 August 2017.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 16,779 hectares (167.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Ngamiland East (13,572 ha, 0.3 %); Ngamiland West (3,370 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 30.2 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, class Very high.
- 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: 15. Their median duration was 5 days and their median area 3,837 ha; 33 % went past 10,000 ha. Only 1 of its 15 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In none of them did 1 mm fall in the ten days after the end: they all went out without rain.
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 · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 20 August 2017 → 21 August 2017.
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.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 16 August 2017 to 20 August 2017. 591 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 2015, 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 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.