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Chobe fire, 8 June 2026 Chobe

Out · last detection 11 Jun 2026, 11:40 UTC

The fire started on 8 June 2026 in Chobe, Botswana, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,087 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 89th largest in Chobe since 2016 (of 129 with a page). Number 107 in Botswana in 2026, of 166.

Burnt area
3,087ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
8 Jun 2026 – 11 Jun 2026
Municipalities hit
1
subdistricts
Started on
8 Jun
2026
Heat detections
27
in a single hotspot: 59 MW
Danger at start
41
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
250MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

11 Jun 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Jun11 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

891011

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

The weather it burned in

29°high
32km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

It had gone 48 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.0 mm on 20 Jun.

This area had burned before

90% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 292 ha in 2016, 517 ha in 2017, 570 ha in 2018, 682 ha in 2019, 5 ha in 2021, 1,865 ha in 2022, 648 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,792 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Chobe where it started
    3,097 ha reached on 8 Jun
    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)
8 Jun 28.4 °C 16 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
9 Jun 28.7 °C 18 % 15 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
10 Jun 29.4 °C 17 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
11 Jun 27.6 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
12 Jun after 26.5 °C 26 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
13 Jun after 27.0 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
14 Jun after 25.8 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
15 Jun after 25.4 °C 27 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
16 Jun after 25.2 °C 29 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
17 Jun after 25.7 °C 30 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
18 Jun after 26.7 °C 35 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
19 Jun after 26.8 °C 40 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
20 Jun after 18.8 °C 56 % 50 km/h 3.0 mm Low 9

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Jun 2026
After · 18 Jun 2026

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 10 June 2026 the air beside the fire reached 18 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak18 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1019 µg/m³
Optical depth0.21
67891011121314
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 · 27Every 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 8 June 2026 and 11 June 2026: 4 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 3,087 hectares (30.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Chobe (3,097 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.4 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, class Very high.
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.