Skip to content
worldfires
BW · Botswana · →

Chobe fire, 6 October 2022 Chobe

Out · last detection 18 Oct 2022, 00:16 UTC

The fire started on 6 October 2022 in Chobe, Botswana, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 25,715 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 12th largest in Chobe since 2016 (of 130 with a page). Number 15 in Botswana in 2022, of 327.

Burnt area
25,715ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
6 Oct 2022 – 17 Oct 2022
Municipalities hit
1
subdistricts
Started on
6 Oct
2022
Heat detections
1,021
in a single hotspot: 128 MW
Danger at start
68
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
12.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

18 Oct 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Oct17 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

6789101112131415161718

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
56km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.4 mm on 27 Oct.

This area had burned before

41% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,976 ha in 2017, 7,419 ha in 2018, 280 ha in 2020, 2,403 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 10,623 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Chobe where it started
    25,907 ha reached on 6 Oct
    1.2 %

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)
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 63
10 Oct 35.0 °C 9 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
11 Oct 34.0 °C 11 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
12 Oct 34.0 °C 11 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
13 Oct 34.8 °C 14 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 70
14 Oct 35.5 °C 12 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
15 Oct 35.8 °C 13 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
16 Oct 35.5 °C 15 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
17 Oct 33.9 °C 20 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
18 Oct after 33.3 °C 20 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
19 Oct after 33.3 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.5 mm Very high 50
20 Oct after 33.5 °C 22 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
21 Oct after 33.1 °C 22 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
22 Oct after 35.3 °C 18 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
23 Oct after 35.7 °C 17 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
24 Oct after 34.4 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 47
25 Oct after 35.3 °C 22 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
26 Oct after 34.6 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.7 mm High 35
27 Oct after 31.9 °C 30 % 34 km/h 1.4 mm High 28

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Sept 2022
After · 24 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 · 1,021Every 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 6 October 2022 and 17 October 2022: 12 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 25,715 hectares (257.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Chobe (25,907 ha, 1.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.9 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 71, class Very 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
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy.

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.