Chobe fire, 6 September 2023 Chobe
The fire started on 6 September 2023 in Chobe, Botswana, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,111 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 122th largest in Chobe since 2016 (of 129 with a page). Number 352 in Botswana in 2023, of 381.
The power measured by the satellite is low (29.2 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
- Burnt area
- 2,111ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 3days
- 6 Sept 2023 – 8 Sept 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- subdistricts
- Started on
- 6 Sept
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 102
- in a single hotspot: 29 MW
- Energy released
- 769MW
- sum of detected power
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.
This area had burned before
82% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 245 ha in 2016, 1,045 ha in 2018, 1,401 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,740 ha that had burned before.
What happened to each town
-
Chobe where it started2,122 ha reached on 6 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.
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 · 102Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 28,973 haChobe7 September 2020 · 10 days · 18 km away
- 28,119 haChobe October 2026 · 10 days · 20 km away
- 145,805 haChobe29 September 2018 · 20 days · 21 km away
- 46,164 haChobe3 September 2017 · 24 days · 26 km away
- 106,342 haChobe3 September 2022 · 25 days · 40 km away
- 33,213 haChobe14 September 2026 · 7 days · 40 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Chobe fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 6 September 2023 and 8 September 2023: 3 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 2,111 hectares (21.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Chobe (2,122 ha, 0.1 %).
- 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
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.