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Chobe fire, 1 July 2026 Chobe

Out · last detection 4 Jul 2026, 12:49 UTC

The fire started on 1 July 2026 in Chobe, Botswana, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,963 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 26th largest in Chobe since 2016 (of 130 with a page). Number 29 in Botswana in 2026, of 171.

Burnt area
8,963ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
1 Jul 2026 – 4 Jul 2026
Municipalities hit
1
subdistricts
Started on
1 Jul
2026
Heat detections
210
in a single hotspot: 65 MW
Danger at start
30
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

4 Jul 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Jul4 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

1234

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

The weather it burned in

28°high
30km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 10 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

88% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 6,552 ha in 2016, 1,063 ha in 2017, 1,229 ha in 2018, 2,264 ha in 2019, 1,337 ha in 2022, 708 ha in 2023, 1,199 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,885 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Chobe where it started
    8,991 ha reached on 1 Jul
    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)
1 Jul 26.2 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
2 Jul 27.7 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
3 Jul 27.8 °C 23 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
4 Jul 27.9 °C 21 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
5 Jul after 26.8 °C 27 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
6 Jul after 25.2 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
7 Jul after 24.0 °C 35 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
8 Jul after 24.3 °C 29 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
9 Jul after 24.7 °C 24 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
10 Jul after 24.8 °C 21 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
11 Jul after 25.9 °C 16 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
12 Jul after 26.9 °C 14 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
13 Jul after 27.1 °C 17 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
14 Jul after 27.0 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Jun 2026
After · 11 Jul 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 3 July 2026 the air beside the fire reached 100 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 52: 3.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak100 µg/m³
Days over the guideline3 days
PM10101 µg/m³
Optical depth0.74
29301234567
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 · 210Every 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 July 2026 and 4 July 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 8,963 hectares (89.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Chobe (8,991 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 27.9 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 30 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 33, class 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.