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Chobe fire, 4 October 2022 Chobe

Out · last detection 10 Oct 2022, 11:56 UTC

The fire started on 4 October 2022 in Chobe, Botswana, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,515 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 23th largest in Chobe since 2016 (of 129 with a page). Number 47 in Botswana in 2022, of 327.

Burnt area
10,515ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
4 Oct 2022 – 9 Oct 2022
Municipalities hit
1
subdistricts
Started on
4 Oct
2022
Heat detections
366
in a single hotspot: 195 MW
Danger at start
54
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
5.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 Oct 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Oct9 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

45678910

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
54km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

37% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,960 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Chobe where it started
    10,597 ha reached on 4 Oct
    0.5 %

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)
4 Oct 37.2 °C 11 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
5 Oct 36.1 °C 16 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
6 Oct 35.8 °C 13 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
7 Oct 35.9 °C 13 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
8 Oct 34.9 °C 9 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
9 Oct 34.4 °C 11 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
10 Oct after 35.0 °C 9 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
11 Oct after 34.0 °C 11 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
12 Oct after 34.0 °C 11 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
13 Oct after 34.7 °C 14 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 70
14 Oct after 35.4 °C 12 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
15 Oct after 35.8 °C 13 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
16 Oct after 35.4 °C 15 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
17 Oct after 33.8 °C 20 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
18 Oct after 33.2 °C 20 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
19 Oct after 33.2 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.5 mm Very high 49
20 Oct after 33.4 °C 22 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 27 Sept 2022
After · 16 Oct 2022

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 · 366Every 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 4 October 2022 and 9 October 2022: 6 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 10,515 hectares (105.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Chobe (10,597 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.2 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 68, 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.