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Chobe fire, 10 September 2020 Chobe

Out · last detection 13 Sept 2020, 11:49 UTC

The fire started on 10 September 2020 in Chobe, Botswana, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,863 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 33th largest in Chobe since 2016 (of 130 with a page). Number 26 in Botswana in 2020, of 121.

Burnt area
6,863ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
10 Sept 2020 – 13 Sept 2020
Municipalities hit
1
subdistricts
Started on
10 Sept
2020
Heat detections
190
in a single hotspot: 136 MW
Danger at start
48
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

13 Sept 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Sept13 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

10111213

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

The weather it burned in

30°high
44km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

21% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,377 ha in 2017, 45 ha in 2018.

What happened to each town

  1. Chobe where it started
    6,896 ha reached on 10 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)
10 Sept 29.5 °C 15 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
11 Sept 28.5 °C 19 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
12 Sept 29.0 °C 18 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
13 Sept 30.1 °C 18 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
14 Sept after 31.7 °C 14 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
15 Sept after 33.4 °C 12 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
16 Sept after 35.2 °C 12 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
17 Sept after 34.6 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
18 Sept after 32.0 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
19 Sept after 33.6 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
20 Sept after 35.5 °C 14 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
21 Sept after 36.1 °C 11 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
22 Sept after 34.3 °C 17 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
23 Sept after 32.0 °C 23 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Sept 2020
After · 20 Sept 2020

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 · 190Every 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 10 September 2020 and 13 September 2020: 4 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 6,863 hectares (68.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Chobe (6,896 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.1 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, class 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.