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Tutume fire, 17 October 2018 Tutume

Out · last detection 20 Oct 2018, 12:02 UTC

The fire started on 17 October 2018 in Tutume, Botswana, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,457 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 37th largest in Central District since 2016 (of 205 with a page). Number 26 in Botswana in 2018, of 93.

Burnt area
6,457ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
17 Oct 2018 – 19 Oct 2018
Municipalities hit
1
subdistricts
Started on
17 Oct
2018
Heat detections
257
in a single hotspot: 120 MW
Danger at start
54
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
4.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

20 Oct 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Oct19 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

17181920

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
42km/h · peak gust
4%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

9% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 478 ha in 2016, 103 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Tutume where it started
    6,477 ha reached on 17 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)
17 Oct 37.1 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
18 Oct 38.3 °C 4 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
19 Oct 36.0 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
20 Oct after 37.5 °C 19 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
21 Oct after 32.5 °C 27 % 58 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 63
22 Oct after 27.5 °C 19 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
23 Oct after 26.5 °C 17 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
24 Oct after 26.9 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
25 Oct after 30.0 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
26 Oct after 33.2 °C 11 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
27 Oct after 34.7 °C 9 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
28 Oct after 35.1 °C 8 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
29 Oct after 35.0 °C 9 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 10 Oct 2018
After · 26 Oct 2018

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 · 257Every 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 Tutume fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 17 October 2018 and 19 October 2018: 3 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 6,457 hectares (64.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Tutume (6,477 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.3 °C, humidity dropped to 4 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 74, 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.

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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.