Chobe fire, 30 June 2026 Chobe
The fire started on 30 June 2026 in Chobe, Botswana, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,076 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 123th largest in Chobe since 2016 (of 129 with a page). Number 161 in Botswana in 2026, of 166.
- Burnt area
- 2,076ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 5days
- 30 Jun 2026 – 4 Jul 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- subdistricts
- Started on
- 30 Jun
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 31
- in a single hotspot: 165 MW
- Energy released
- 1.1GW
- 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
60% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 654 ha in 2017, 444 ha in 2018, 274 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,250 ha that had burned before.
- 654 ha Chobe fire, August 2017 7,192 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 444 ha Chobe fire, September 2018 145,805 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 203 ha Chobe fire, September 2020 20,994 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 71 ha Chobe fire, September 2020 6,863 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Chobe where it started2,086 ha reached on 28 Jun0.1 %
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.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 2 July 2026 the air beside the fire reached 74 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 50: 3.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 31Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 28,119 haChobe October 2026 · 10 days · 13 km away
- 28,973 haChobe7 September 2020 · 10 days · 18 km away
- 145,805 haChobe29 September 2018 · 20 days · 25 km away
- 106,342 haChobe3 September 2022 · 25 days · 34 km away
- 46,164 haChobe3 September 2017 · 24 days · 34 km away
- 27,106 haChobe18 September 2016 · 8 days · 38 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Chobe fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 30 June 2026 and 4 July 2026: 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 2,076 hectares (20.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Chobe (2,086 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.