Burned area
satellite only73,517ha
Union of 3 GWIS (Copernicus) perimeters: overlapping areas count once.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 4 Aug 2023 – 26 Aug 2023
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
BW · Botswana · –
Ngamiland West fire, 4 August 2023 Ngamiland West
Out · last detection 26 Aug 2023, 23:08 UTC
The fire started on 4 August 2023 in Ngamiland West, Botswana, and satellites saw it burning for 23 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 73,517 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 5th largest in North-West District since 2016 (of 516 with a page). Number 4 in Botswana in 2023, of 381.
Use this data
Compare with…
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-10-26matches 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 only23days
4 Aug 2023 to 26 Aug 2023: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 26 Aug 2023, 23:08 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 only4 Aug 2023
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 4 Aug 2023
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only3,035
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 316 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 4 Aug 2023 – 26 Aug 2023
+− 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 only9,035MW
Total radiative power on 22 August 2023; hotspots that day: 315.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 22 Aug 2023
+− 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
model49.8FWI · very high
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 13.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 4 Aug 2023, 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
model35.1°C · 13% RH
High of 35.1 °C and minimum humidity of 13% on 25 August 2023; gusts of 49 km/h on 26 August 2023.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 4 Aug 2023 – 26 Aug 2023
- 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
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
logStart date: 7 August 2023 → 4 August 2023.
-
· reconstructed GHSLPopulation and built-up area computed
What was saved on 26 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
- 73,543 ha
- Dates
- 4 Aug 2023 – 26 Aug 2023
- Name
- Ngamiland West
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/ngamiland-west-2023-08?v=2026-10-26A 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-2023-08.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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-08-04 | 10 | 262 | 25.3 | 9.3 | 21 | 16.9 | 36.4 | 0 | 49.8 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2023-08-05 | 0 | 0 | 25.7 | 7.7 | 20 | 15.6 | 32.4 | 0 | 44.7 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2023-08-06 | 0 | 0 | 25.9 | 7.9 | 18 | 14.1 | 32 | 0 | 47.8 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2023-08-07 | 37 | 357 | 27.2 | 8.1 | 21 | 16.7 | 37.1 | 0 | 49.6 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2023-08-08 | 103 | 779 | 27.6 | 11.1 | 21 | 15.1 | 33.5 | 0 | 50.8 | extremo | 1 |
| 2023-08-09 | 186 | 1,176 | 27.3 | 13.5 | 17 | 16.3 | 34.2 | 0 | 53.4 | extremo | 1 |
| 2023-08-10 | 202 | 2,767 | 27.5 | 11.5 | 20 | 19.2 | 41 | 0 | 60.3 | extremo | 1 |
| 2023-08-11 | 283 | 3,245 | 27.9 | 12.1 | 21 | 19.9 | 42.5 | 0 | 61.5 | extremo | 1 |
| 2023-08-12 | 173 | 1,900 | 29.1 | 12.5 | 18 | 16 | 35.3 | 0 | 53.5 | extremo | 1 |
| 2023-08-13 | 220 | 1,407 | 30.1 | 14.4 | 16 | 16.9 | 36 | 0 | 58.6 | extremo | 1 |
| 2023-08-14 | 182 | 3,660 | 30.3 | 11.2 | 18 | 10.6 | 23.4 | 0 | 44.9 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2023-08-15 | 145 | 2,337 | 31.5 | 11.8 | 13 | 11.9 | 22 | 0 | 39.7 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2023-08-16 | 96 | 1,143 | 31.6 | 11.2 | 12 | 18.6 | 39.6 | 0 | 70.7 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2023-08-17 | 47 | 399 | 31.6 | 13.3 | 16 | 15.5 | 34.2 | 0 | 65.9 | extremo | 1 |
| 2023-08-18 | 43 | 936 | 32.8 | 12.4 | 13 | 12.4 | 25.6 | 0 | 49.8 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2023-08-19 | 37 | 176 | 32.9 | 11.5 | 13 | 13.5 | 31.7 | 0 | 62.2 | extremo | 1 |
| 2023-08-20 | 53 | 727 | 34.1 | 13.5 | 13 | 13.5 | 30.6 | 0 | 63.3 | extremo | 1 |
| 2023-08-21 | 85 | 960 | 34.5 | 14.6 | 12 | 16.1 | 34.6 | 0 | 72.5 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2023-08-22 | 315 | 9,035 | 34.6 | 13.5 | 10 | 11.8 | 20.5 | 0 | 49.1 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2023-08-23 | 219 | 2,445 | 34.1 | 13.5 | 12 | 11.8 | 27 | 0 | 58.9 | extremo | 1 |
| 2023-08-24 | 308 | 4,730 | 33.8 | 14.4 | 11 | 15.6 | 33.8 | 0 | 68.8 | extremo | 1 |
| 2023-08-25 | 235 | 6,668 | 35.1 | 14.6 | 13 | 18.8 | 41.4 | 0 | 77 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2023-08-26 | 56 | 416 | 28.6 | 16.2 | 11 | 25 | 49 | 0 | 90.9 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2023-08-27 | 0 | 0 | 26.3 | 13.9 | 11 | 24.2 | 42.5 | 0 | 85.1 | muy_extremo | 0 |
| 2023-08-28 | 0 | 0 | 27.1 | 15.4 | 35 | 21.4 | 42.5 | 0 | 49.6 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2023-08-29 | 0 | 0 | 27 | 13.1 | 23 | 18.8 | 40 | 0 | 49.7 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2023-08-30 | 0 | 0 | 27.6 | 10.3 | 17 | 13.5 | 31.3 | 0 | 49.4 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2023-08-31 | 0 | 0 | 29 | 8.8 | 15 | 12.4 | 30.2 | 0 | 49.1 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2023-09-01 | 0 | 0 | 31.8 | 12.3 | 12 | 10.5 | 24.5 | 0 | 52.3 | extremo | 0 |
| 2023-09-02 | 0 | 0 | 33 | 13.9 | 10 | 14 | 31.7 | 0 | 68.7 | extremo | 0 |
| 2023-09-03 | 0 | 0 | 34 | 14.5 | 10 | 16.7 | 35.6 | 0 | 75.5 | muy_extremo | 0 |
| 2023-09-04 | 0 | 0 | 34.3 | 12.5 | 11 | 14 | 31.3 | 0 | 66.1 | extremo | 0 |
| 2023-09-05 | 0 | 0 | 34.9 | 13 | 8 | 14.1 | 29.9 | 0 | 62.4 | 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
- 73,517ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 23days
- 4 Aug 2023 – 26 Aug 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- subdistricts
- Started on
- 4 Aug
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 3,035
- in a single hotspot: 316 MW
- Danger at start
- 50
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 2.2GW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
4 Aug26 Aug
26 Aug 2023
How it evolved, day by day
4 Aug
11 Aug
16 Aug
22 Aug
26 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
35°high
49km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity
It had gone 13 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
32% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,968 ha in 2016, 5,596 ha in 2017, 9,012 ha in 2018, 2,325 ha in 2020, 5,186 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 23,190 ha that had burned before.
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
-
Ngamiland West where it started73,753 ha1.2 %
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 2025Built-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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 Aug | 25.3 °C | 21 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 5 Aug | 25.7 °C | 20 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 6 Aug | 25.9 °C | 18 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 7 Aug | 27.2 °C | 21 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 8 Aug | 27.6 °C | 21 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 9 Aug | 27.3 °C | 17 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 10 Aug | 27.5 °C | 20 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 11 Aug | 27.9 °C | 21 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 12 Aug | 29.1 °C | 18 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 13 Aug | 30.1 °C | 16 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 14 Aug | 30.3 °C | 18 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 15 Aug | 31.5 °C | 13 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 16 Aug | 31.6 °C | 12 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 71 |
| 17 Aug | 31.6 °C | 16 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 66 |
| 18 Aug | 32.8 °C | 13 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 19 Aug | 32.9 °C | 13 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 20 Aug | 34.1 °C | 13 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 21 Aug | 34.5 °C | 12 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 72 |
| 22 Aug | 34.6 °C | 10 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 23 Aug | 34.1 °C | 12 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 24 Aug | 33.8 °C | 11 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 69 |
| 25 Aug | 35.1 °C | 13 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 77 |
| 26 Aug | 28.6 °C | 11 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 91 |
| 27 Aug after | 26.3 °C | 11 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 85 |
| 28 Aug after | 27.1 °C | 35 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 29 Aug after | 27.0 °C | 23 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 30 Aug after | 27.6 °C | 17 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 31 Aug after | 29.0 °C | 15 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 1 Sept after | 31.8 °C | 12 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 2 Sept after | 33.0 °C | 10 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 69 |
| 3 Sept after | 34.0 °C | 10 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 76 |
| 4 Sept after | 34.3 °C | 11 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 66 |
| 5 Sept after | 34.9 °C | 8 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 49.8, a minimum humidity of 21% and 13 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 32.
FWI at the start
49.8
Minimum humidity
21 %
Days without rain
13
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Ngamiland West fire, 4 August 2023
73,517 ha
23 days
FWI 49.8
Min. humidity 21 %
Ndiyona fire, May 2023
2,591 ha
6 days
FWI 51.5
Min. humidity 21 %
82 km away, in 2023
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Ngamiland West fire, November 2017
2,891 ha
8 days
FWI 51.7
Min. humidity 21 %
116 km away, in 2017
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 7.2 mm on 11 Nov.
Ngamiland East fire, June 2023
2,105 ha
3 days
FWI 54.1
Min. humidity 22 %
182 km away, in 2023
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Ngamiland East fire, April 2019
3,861 ha
8 days
FWI 51.1
Min. humidity 23 %
213 km away, in 2019
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Mashare fire, October 2019
2,459 ha
5 days
FWI 48.1
Min. humidity 16 %
108 km away, in 2019
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 3.6 mm on 1 Nov.
What happened to them
- 8 days
- median duration
- 3,226 ha
- median area
- 3 %
- went past 10,000 ha
- 2.3 mm
- rain at the end (median; 16 of 32 had it)
It was 22.8 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 23 days, against 8 days.
None of its 32 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 16 of 32, 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 2.3 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
49km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 26 Aug, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 16 of 32, with a median of 2.3 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.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 28 Jul 2023
After · 2 Sept 2023
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.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 15 August 2023 the air beside the fire reached 161 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 87: 5.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
PM2.5 peak161 µg/m³
Days over the guideline16 days
PM10230 µg/m³
Optical depth1.53
WHO 15
5 Aug10 Aug15 Aug20 Aug25 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 · 3,035Every 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
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 4 August 2023 to 26 August 2023 (23 days). The perimeter dates it from 7 August 2023 to 26 August 2023.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 73,517 hectares (735.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Ngamiland West (73,753 ha, 1.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.1 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 91, 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.
- 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: 32. Their median duration was 8 days and their median area 3,226 ha; 3 % went past 10,000 ha. None of its 32 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 16 of 32, 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 2.3 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 · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Start date: 7 August 2023 → 4 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.
Report an error
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 7 August 2023 to 26 August 2023. 3,035 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.
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.