Botswana's only world heritage site, Tsodilo Hills, also caught fire last week. The extent of the damage has not been established.

By late Friday, satellite images showed that raging fires had started destroying the world-acclaimed Okavango Delta and its surrounding areas in a brutal fashion, sending fears that tourist visits at the Okavango will be cancelled indefinitely.

At the rate at which the fires were burning on Friday, it is feared that a good number of tour facilities at the Delta will be lost leaving the operators with heavy losses.

The fire spread to Ngamiland at the Okavango Delta from Groot Lagte in the Gantsi District. The forestry department said the fire also destroyed the Kake foot and mouth disease control fence as it crossed into the Ngami, exposing the Gantsi area to the highly mobile disease commonly found in among cattle in the Ngami.

Satellite images also showed that Gumare, near the Delta, was heavily affected late Friday. The images indicated that the fires that ravaged Gumare last week entered the country from the Caprivi Strip in Namibia.

Besides destruction to communal land and people's property at Gumare, a game ranch specialising in the endangered species of sables was affected.

The acting director at the Department of Forestry, Range Land Resources, Raymond Kwerepe, says threats of fires from the Namibian side of the border were received on September 26 when satellite images showed fires approaching from Namibia. But it was not until Friday that the fires finally reached Botswana, causing a lot of destruction around the Delta.

Kwerepe says although the veldt fires have been widespread around the country it was not until last week that the Okavango area was heavily hit.

Also affected in the Okavango area is the world heritage site of Tsodilo Hills, as well as the 20x 20km government ranch of Kgomo-kgwaana where six paddocks burnt last week.

The fires are continuing. Satellite images also showed one fire approaching the Moremi Game Reserve on Friday.

The Forestry official late Friday briefed the office of the president about the new disaster.

Already, 60 percent of Chobe, another serene, exclusive tourism destination, has been ravaged by fire, according to the forestry department.

"Sixty percent of the Chobe area is gone, especially the protected area. It was already gone by mid-September. The Chobe forest national park is gone, and 50 percent of Maikaelelo Forest Reserve also inside the Chobe area has been affected," Kwerepe said.

The acting director also revealed that the country is facing threats of fires from South Africa and Zimbabwe although by Friday the fires had not crossed into Botswana.

However, fires burning from Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe, which encircles most parts of Eastern and Northern Botswana, appeared so huge that should the fires cross into Botswana, the losses could be unbearable.

Kwerepe says they have made attempts to alert authorities in Namibia and Zimbabwe about the fires encroaching into Botswana. Neighbouring countries appear to have lost the war against the fires.

"Botswana is burning as you can see. Already we have lost 80 percent of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve or CKGR, which is the size of Morocco. It is the largest wildlife reserve in the world a habitat for so many species of wildlife."

Kwerepe says the fires at the CKGR have put stress on wild animals, which had to run away from the fires, many forced to move into new habitat. "The animal breeding ground has been affected. There is no food for the animals at the moment in the CKGR. The eland live on wild melons, which have since disappeared," he says.

He added that the ecosystem has been adversely affected. "If it does not rain very soon, we will witness land degradation which will have a telling effect on the bio-diversity of the area, which will harm our tourism." Kwerepe said.

The Khutse Game Reserve in the Kweneng District last week lost 74,800 hectares of land after the September 28 fires, which were extinguished last Wednesday. Khutse covers 280,000 hectares.

In the Central District, veldt fires have already claimed 19 ranches at sand Veldt three weeks ago. At Kaka ranches, near Orapa-Letlhakane, the fires which were eventually contained last week Tuesday, according to the forestry department, destroyed more than six ranches.