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Chobe fire, September 2025 Chobe

Out · last detection 3 Sept 2025, 12:42 UTC

The fire started on 1 September 2025 in Chobe, Botswana, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,512 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 73th largest in Chobe since 2016 (of 129 with a page). Number 53 in Botswana in 2025, of 104.

Burnt area
3,512ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
1 Sept 2025 – 3 Sept 2025
Municipalities hit
1
subdistricts
Started on
1 Sept
2025
Heat detections
145
in a single hotspot: 306 MW
Danger at start
50
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

3 Sept 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Sept3 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

123

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
45km/h · peak gust
8%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

78% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 879 ha in 2016, 1,464 ha in 2018, 1,751 ha in 2020, 94 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,735 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Chobe where it started
    3,536 ha reached on 1 Sept
    0.2 %

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)
1 Sept 33.1 °C 8 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
2 Sept 31.7 °C 8 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
3 Sept 30.8 °C 10 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
4 Sept after 32.9 °C 9 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
5 Sept after 32.7 °C 13 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
6 Sept after 34.5 °C 9 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
7 Sept after 33.6 °C 13 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
8 Sept after 33.7 °C 13 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
9 Sept after 33.2 °C 14 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
10 Sept after 32.5 °C 16 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
11 Sept after 33.0 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
12 Sept after 33.6 °C 15 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
13 Sept after 33.6 °C 13 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Aug 2025
After · 10 Sept 2025

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 4 September 2025 the air beside the fire reached 17 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak17 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1018 µg/m³
Optical depth0.46
3031123456
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 · 145Every 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 1 September 2025 and 3 September 2025: 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 3,512 hectares (35.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Chobe (3,536 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.1 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 61, 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.