How long did the Tutume fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 10 October 2026 to 31 October 2026 (22 days). The perimeter dates it from 10 October 2026 to 29 October 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 36,163 hectares (361.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Tutume (36,268 ha, 0.8 %).

Is the Tutume fire still active?

Yes: satellites detected fire on 31 Oct 2026, 12:19 UTC. Check the emergency service for the official status.

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 40.5 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 71, 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.

BW · Botswana · 2026-10-10 → 2026-10-31

Tutume fire, 10 October 2026 Tutume

Burning · last detection 31 Oct 2026, 12:19 UTC

The fire started on 10 October 2026 in Tutume, Botswana, and satellites saw it burning for 22 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 36,163 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 4th largest in Central District since 2016 (of 211 with a page). Number 5 in Botswana in 2026, of 214.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Tutume · 2017 Tutume · 2019 Tutume · 2018 Tutume · 2023

Is it still active?

Satellites detected fire on 31 Oct 2026, 12:19 UTC. Everything suggests it is still burning. 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.

Burnt area: 36,163ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 22days; 10 Oct 2026 – 31 Oct 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; subdistricts
Started on: 10 Oct; 2026
Heat detections: 987; in a single hotspot: 77 MW
Danger at start: 48; Very high · FWI index
Average daily power: 436MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Oct31 Oct

Play back 31 Oct 2026

How it evolved, day by day

10 Oct 14 Oct 17 Oct 20 Oct 23 Oct 26 Oct 29 Oct

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

The weather it burned in

40°high

44km/h · peak gust

8%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

6% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,883 ha in 2017, 847 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,001 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 23% of the area of London (362 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

Tutume where it started

36,268 ha reached on 10 Oct

0.8 %

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 area1.2 ha

Residents≈ 40

Inside the perimeter there were about 1.2 hectares of built-up land and about 40 residents (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) · forecast models, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives

Day	High	Min. humidity	Peak gust	Danger (FWI)
10 Oct	34.8 °C	12 %	42 km/h	Very high 48
11 Oct	34.2 °C	14 %	42 km/h	Very high 49
12 Oct	33.8 °C	16 %	37 km/h	Very high 43
13 Oct	35.5 °C	13 %	34 km/h	Very high 39
14 Oct	36.2 °C	14 %	41 km/h	Very high 46
15 Oct	34.8 °C	21 %	40 km/h	Very high 44
16 Oct	35.0 °C	14 %	39 km/h	Extreme 51
17 Oct	34.7 °C	16 %	36 km/h	Very high 46
18 Oct	35.8 °C	10 %	40 km/h	Very high 50
19 Oct	38.1 °C	12 %	39 km/h	Extreme 54
20 Oct	38.0 °C	9 %	28 km/h	Extreme 51
21 Oct	38.8 °C	9 %	28 km/h	Extreme 52
22 Oct	40.5 °C	8 %	35 km/h	Extreme 58
23 Oct	40.2 °C	9 %	44 km/h	Very extreme 71
24 Oct	35.6 °C	22 %	41 km/h	Extreme 58
25 Oct	35.2 °C	23 %	34 km/h	Extreme 51
26 Oct	36.3 °C	19 %	37 km/h	Very high 47
27 Oct	36.9 °C	15 %	41 km/h	Extreme 57
28 Oct	37.3 °C	15 %	34 km/h	Extreme 56
29 Oct	36.5 °C	14 %	44 km/h	Extreme 60
30 Oct	34.0 °C	23 %	42 km/h	Extreme 56
31 Oct	35.0 °C	13 %	39 km/h	Extreme 54

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 3 Oct 2026

After · 30 Oct 2026

Before After

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 15 October 2026 the air beside the fire reached 27 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 20: 1.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak27 µg/m³

Days over the guideline1 day

PM1032 µg/m³

Optical depth0.63

WHO 15

891011121314151617

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 · 987Every 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

All fires in Botswana ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Tutume fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 10 October 2026 to 31 October 2026 (22 days). The perimeter dates it from 10 October 2026 to 29 October 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 36,163 hectares (361.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Tutume (36,268 ha, 0.8 %).
Is the Tutume fire still active?: Yes: satellites detected fire on 31 Oct 2026, 12:19 UTC. Check the emergency service for the official status.
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 40.5 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 71, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page · 4 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

28 October 2026 Area: 35,160 → 35,957 ha.
27 October 2026 Area: 32,641 → 35,160 ha.
26 October 2026 Area: 31,931 → 32,641 ha.
25 October 2026 Area: 30,591 → 31,931 ha.

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.

Report an error

What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy.

How we know this

Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 4 polygons grouped in this page.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 10 October 2026 to 29 October 2026. 987 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
We have not matched this page with any official record.
Weather: ECMWF IFS model, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives.
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.