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Chobe fire, 1 September 2017 Chobe

Out · last detection 4 Sept 2017, 12:08 UTC

The fire started on 1 September 2017 in Chobe, Botswana, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,559 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 41th largest in Chobe since 2016 (of 129 with a page). Number 68 in Botswana in 2017, of 196.

Burnt area
5,559ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
1 Sept 2017 – 3 Sept 2017
Municipalities hit
1
subdistricts
Started on
1 Sept
2017
Heat detections
175
in a single hotspot: 253 MW
Danger at start
49
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

4 Sept 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Sept3 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

1234

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
43km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

34% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,871 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Chobe where it started
    5,589 ha reached on 1 Sept
    0.3 %

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)
1 Sept 32.1 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
2 Sept 32.1 °C 17 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
3 Sept 28.8 °C 24 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
4 Sept after 27.9 °C 23 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
5 Sept after 27.9 °C 18 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
6 Sept after 30.7 °C 16 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
7 Sept after 32.3 °C 16 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
8 Sept after 33.5 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
9 Sept after 34.0 °C 14 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
10 Sept after 33.7 °C 12 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
11 Sept after 33.4 °C 10 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
12 Sept after 33.0 °C 13 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
13 Sept after 33.3 °C 11 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Aug 2017
After · 10 Sept 2017

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 · 175Every 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 Chobe fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 September 2017 and 3 September 2017: 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 5,559 hectares (55.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Chobe (5,589 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.1 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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.

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.