Chobe fire, 27 September 2022 Chobe
The fire started on 27 September 2022 in Chobe, Botswana, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 19,895 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 14th largest in Chobe since 2016 (of 130 with a page). Number 24 in Botswana in 2022, of 327.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Chobe · 2021Chobe · 2017Chobe · 2017Chobe · 2017
- Burnt area
- 19,895ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 9days
- 27 Sept 2022 – 5 Oct 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- subdistricts
- Started on
- 27 Sept
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 616
- in a single hotspot: 84 MW
- Danger at start
- 55
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 725MW
- 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
44% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,780 ha in 2017, 848 ha in 2019, 5,668 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 8,827 ha that had burned before.
- 4,739 ha Chobe fire, August 2021 31,348 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,117 ha Chobe fire, August 2017 3,061 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 551 ha Chobe fire, August 2017 3,828 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 311 ha Chobe fire, August 2017 6,398 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 183 ha Chobe fire, October 2021 96,139 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 started19,989 ha reached on 27 Sept1.0 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 27 Sept | 36.3 °C | 13 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 28 Sept | 36.0 °C | 17 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 29 Sept | 34.4 °C | 15 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 30 Sept | 33.9 °C | 14 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 1 Oct | 35.5 °C | 14 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 2 Oct | 36.6 °C | 12 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 3 Oct | 36.9 °C | 11 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 4 Oct | 37.7 °C | 12 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 5 Oct | 38.0 °C | 12 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 6 Oct after | 37.3 °C | 11 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 7 Oct after | 37.5 °C | 10 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 8 Oct after | 36.1 °C | 9 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 67 |
| 9 Oct after | 35.7 °C | 8 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 10 Oct after | 35.7 °C | 10 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 65 |
| 11 Oct after | 34.9 °C | 12 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 12 Oct after | 35.1 °C | 12 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 13 Oct after | 36.4 °C | 13 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 14 Oct after | 36.8 °C | 10 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 65 |
| 15 Oct after | 36.7 °C | 11 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
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 · 616Every 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 27 September 2022 and 5 October 2022: 9 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 19,895 hectares (199.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Chobe (19,989 ha, 1.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 38.0 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 62, 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
History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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. 616 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.