Skip to content
worldfires
en
BW · Botswana · →

Chobe fire, 11 September 2023 Chobe

Out · last detection 16 Sept 2023, 23:13 UTC

The fire started on 11 September 2023 in Chobe, Botswana, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,888 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 27th largest in Chobe since 2016 (of 130 with a page). Number 58 in Botswana in 2023, of 381.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Chobe · 2021Chobe · 2017Chobe · 2017Chobe · 2023

Burnt area
8,888ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
11 Sept 2023 – 15 Sept 2023
Municipalities hit
1
subdistricts
Started on
11 Sept
2023
Heat detections
444
in a single hotspot: 39 MW
Danger at start
69
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
422MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

16 Sept 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Sept15 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

11 Sept 2023 · 392 MW · 61 12 Sept 2023 · 612 MW · 104 13 Sept 2023 · 928 MW · 128 14 Sept 2023 · 349 MW · 81 15 Sept 2023 · 241 MW · 46 16 Sept 2023 · 11 MW · 7
11 Sept 12 Sept 13 Sept 14 Sept 15 Sept 16 Sept

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
44km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

85% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,825 ha in 2017, 5,040 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,512 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 5.6% of the area of London (89 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Chobe where it started
    8,958 ha reached on 11 Sept
    0.4 %

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)
11 Sept 36.5 °C 11 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
12 Sept 29.0 °C 13 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
13 Sept 30.8 °C 27 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
14 Sept 33.1 °C 16 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
15 Sept 34.1 °C 17 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
16 Sept after 35.6 °C 11 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
17 Sept after 36.9 °C 9 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
18 Sept after 36.0 °C 10 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
19 Sept after 36.1 °C 14 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
20 Sept after 35.3 °C 17 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
21 Sept after 37.0 °C 12 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
22 Sept after 37.4 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
23 Sept after 37.2 °C 10 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
24 Sept after 37.5 °C 14 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
25 Sept after 36.3 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Sept 2023
After · 22 Sept 2023

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 11 September 2023 the air beside the fire reached 31 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 18: 1.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak31 µg/m³
Days over the guideline3 days
PM1045 µg/m³
Optical depth0.60
9101112131415161718
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 444Every 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 11 September 2023 and 15 September 2023: 5 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 8,888 hectares (88.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Chobe (8,958 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.5 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 69, 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
What do you think is wrong?

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

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. 444 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.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.