Chobe fire, 3 September 2022 Chobe
The fire started on 3 September 2022 in Chobe, Botswana, and satellites saw it burning for 25 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 106,342 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
This page is probably a fire complex, not a single fire. GWIS merges into one perimeter the fires that touch over weeks, which in large burning seasons can join dozens of separate fires. The total area is reliable; the origin and dates refer to the whole complex.
Other fire pages in the same area and on the same dates:
It is the 2th largest in Chobe since 2016 (of 130 with a page). The largest in Botswana in 2022, of 327.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Chobe · 2016Chobe · 2018Chobe · 2017Chobe · 2018
- Burnt area
- 106,342ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 25days
- 3 Sept 2022 – 27 Sept 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- subdistricts
- Started on
- 3 Sept
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 3,951
- in a single hotspot: 278 MW
- Danger at start
- 38
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 1.6GW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
63% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 30,109 ha in 2016, 15,458 ha in 2017, 34,727 ha in 2018, 416 ha in 2019, 359 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 66,930 ha that had burned before.
- 13,640 ha Chobe fire, September 2016 27,106 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 12,640 ha Chobe fire, September 2018 16,614 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 7,470 ha Chobe fire, September 2017 14,464 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 6,268 ha Chobe fire, September 2018 11,387 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,453 ha Chobe fire, September 2018 9,229 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,064 ha Chobe fire, September 2018 3,835 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,586 ha Chobe fire, September 2016 6,140 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,461 ha Chobe fire, September 2017 3,837 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Chobe where it started106,478 ha reached on 3 Sept5.0 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 Sept | 27.6 °C | 21 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 4 Sept | 31.5 °C | 18 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 5 Sept | 33.8 °C | 13 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 6 Sept | 34.5 °C | 10 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 7 Sept | 30.5 °C | 24 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 8 Sept | 30.2 °C | 20 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 9 Sept | 31.1 °C | 18 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 10 Sept | 32.0 °C | 13 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 11 Sept | 33.0 °C | 12 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 12 Sept | 33.6 °C | 10 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 13 Sept | 33.2 °C | 17 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 14 Sept | 29.3 °C | 22 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 15 Sept | 28.6 °C | 22 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 16 Sept | 30.0 °C | 19 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 17 Sept | 31.2 °C | 19 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 18 Sept | 33.7 °C | 15 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 19 Sept | 34.5 °C | 18 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 20 Sept | 32.4 °C | 19 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 21 Sept | 32.7 °C | 18 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 22 Sept | 34.1 °C | 15 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 23 Sept | 34.8 °C | 19 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 24 Sept | 34.2 °C | 17 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 25 Sept | 33.6 °C | 16 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 26 Sept | 34.6 °C | 15 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 27 Sept | 35.5 °C | 14 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 28 Sept after | 34.1 °C | 20 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 29 Sept after | 33.1 °C | 16 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 30 Sept after | 33.1 °C | 14 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 1 Oct after | 34.5 °C | 14 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 2 Oct after | 35.2 °C | 13 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 3 Oct after | 36.2 °C | 11 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 4 Oct after | 37.1 °C | 9 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 5 Oct after | 36.9 °C | 13 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 70 |
| 6 Oct after | 36.2 °C | 12 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 67 |
| 7 Oct after | 36.3 °C | 11 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 70 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · 3,951Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Chobe fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 September 2022 and 27 September 2022: 25 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 106,342 hectares (1,063.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Chobe (106,478 ha, 5.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.5 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 64, 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.
Report an error
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 3,951 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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.