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Chobe fire, 16 August 2021 Chobe

Out · last detection 29 Aug 2021, 12:27 UTC

The fire started on 16 August 2021 in Chobe, Botswana, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 31,348 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 8th largest in Chobe since 2016 (of 129 with a page). Number 16 in Botswana in 2021, of 406.

Burnt area
31,348ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
13days
16 Aug 2021 – 28 Aug 2021
Municipalities hit
1
subdistricts
Started on
16 Aug
2021
Heat detections
1,001
in a single hotspot: 69 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
8.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

29 Aug 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Aug28 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

1617181920212223242526272829

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
47km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

29% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 176 ha in 2016, 8,710 ha in 2017, 321 ha in 2019, 14 ha in 2020.

What happened to each town

  1. Chobe where it started
    31,483 ha reached on 16 Aug
    1.5 %

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)
16 Aug 26.5 °C 26 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
17 Aug 28.0 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
18 Aug 29.2 °C 17 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
19 Aug 31.7 °C 12 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
20 Aug 32.9 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
21 Aug 31.7 °C 15 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
22 Aug 31.6 °C 17 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
23 Aug 32.0 °C 23 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
24 Aug 31.9 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
25 Aug 33.0 °C 18 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
26 Aug 32.6 °C 12 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
27 Aug 33.5 °C 15 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
28 Aug 28.1 °C 20 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
29 Aug after 28.4 °C 13 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
30 Aug after 31.3 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
31 Aug after 32.8 °C 17 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
1 Sept after 33.0 °C 17 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
2 Sept after 33.0 °C 17 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
3 Sept after 31.4 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
4 Sept after 33.8 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
5 Sept after 34.1 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
6 Sept after 35.1 °C 15 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
7 Sept after 35.1 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Aug 2021
After · 4 Sept 2021

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 · 1,001Every 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 16 August 2021 and 28 August 2021: 13 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 31,348 hectares (313.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Chobe (31,483 ha, 1.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.5 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 57, 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.