Chobe fire, 19 September 2022 Chobe
The fire started on 19 September 2022 in Chobe, Botswana, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,484 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 107th largest in Chobe since 2016 (of 130 with a page). Number 259 in Botswana in 2022, of 327.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Chobe · 2016Chobe · 2017Chobe · 2020Chobe · 2018
- Burnt area
- 2,484ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 1day
- 19 Sept 2022 – 19 Sept 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- subdistricts
- Started on
- 19 Sept
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 93
- in a single hotspot: 255 MW
- Danger at start
- 50
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 4.5GW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
19 Sept 2022 · 4,465 MW · 93
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
66% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,009 ha in 2016, 228 ha in 2017, 15 ha in 2018, 555 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,628 ha that had burned before.
- 1,009 ha Chobe fire, October 2016 6,331 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 220 ha Chobe fire, August 2017 2,987 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 170 ha Chobe fire, September 2020 3,742 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 15 ha Chobe fire, September 2018 145,805 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 8 ha Chobe fire, August 2017 4,141 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 started2,496 ha reached on 19 Sept0.1 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19 Sept | 34.2 °C | 19 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 20 Sept after | 32.0 °C | 20 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 21 Sept after | 32.4 °C | 20 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 22 Sept after | 33.7 °C | 16 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 23 Sept after | 34.5 °C | 20 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 24 Sept after | 33.6 °C | 19 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 25 Sept after | 33.2 °C | 15 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 26 Sept after | 33.8 °C | 17 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 27 Sept after | 34.8 °C | 16 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 28 Sept after | 33.2 °C | 20 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 29 Sept after | 32.5 °C | 18 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
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 · 93Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 32,130 haHwange21 September 2022 · 27 days · 16 km away
- 28,119 haChobe 11 October 2026 · 10 days · 20 km away
- 28,973 haChobe7 September 2020 · 10 days · 21 km away
- 145,805 haChobe29 September 2018 · 20 days · 31 km away
- 33,213 haChobe14 September 2026 · 7 days · 34 km away
- 20,994 haChobe8 September 2020 · 7 days · 39 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Chobe fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 19 September 2022 and 19 September 2022: 1 day 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 2,484 hectares (24.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Chobe (2,496 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 34.2 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 93 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.