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Chobe fire, 3 October 2025 Chobe

Out · last detection 7 Oct 2025, 23:16 UTC

The fire started on 3 October 2025 in Chobe, Botswana, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,426 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 42th largest in Chobe since 2016 (of 129 with a page). Number 31 in Botswana in 2025, of 104.

Burnt area
5,426ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
3 Oct 2025 – 7 Oct 2025
Municipalities hit
1
subdistricts
Started on
3 Oct
2025
Heat detections
181
in a single hotspot: 50 MW
Danger at start
48
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

7 Oct 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Oct7 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

34567

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
50km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

81% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,185 ha in 2017, 93 ha in 2018, 2,287 ha in 2022.

What happened to each town

  1. Chobe where it started
    5,466 ha reached on 3 Oct
    0.3 %

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)
3 Oct 34.2 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
4 Oct 32.3 °C 16 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
5 Oct 32.9 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
6 Oct 36.3 °C 10 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
7 Oct 36.5 °C 12 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
8 Oct after 34.2 °C 15 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
9 Oct after 34.2 °C 18 % 46 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 59
10 Oct after 34.7 °C 18 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
11 Oct after 35.0 °C 17 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
12 Oct after 36.7 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
13 Oct after 36.3 °C 15 % 40 km/h 0.5 mm Extreme 55
14 Oct after 37.7 °C 11 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
15 Oct after 36.8 °C 13 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
16 Oct after 37.5 °C 14 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
17 Oct after 36.5 °C 14 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 Sept 2025
After · 14 Oct 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 9 October 2025 the air beside the fire reached 26 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 16: 1.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak26 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1028 µg/m³
Optical depth0.43
12345678910
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 · 181Every 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 3 October 2025 and 7 October 2025: 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 5,426 hectares (54.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Chobe (5,466 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.5 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 60, 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.