Chobe fire, 14 September 2026 Chobe
The fire started on 14 September 2026 in Chobe, Botswana, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 33,213 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 7th largest in Chobe since 2016 (of 130 with a page). Number 3 in Botswana in 2026, of 171.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Chobe · 2018Chobe · 2020Chobe · 2022Chobe · 2016
- Burnt area
- 33,213ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 7days
- 14 Sept 2026 – 20 Sept 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- subdistricts
- Started on
- 14 Sept
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 893
- in a single hotspot: 172 MW
- Danger at start
- 48
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 1.9GW
- detected power per day, on average
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.
The weather it burned in
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.6 mm on 21 Sept.
This area had burned before
86% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,998 ha in 2016, 21,783 ha in 2018, 8,082 ha in 2020, 306 ha in 2021, 13,129 ha in 2022, 2,293 ha in 2023, 808 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 28,476 ha that had burned before.
- 21,593 ha Chobe fire, September 2018 145,805 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 6,824 ha Chobe fire, September 2020 28,973 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 6,444 ha Chobe fire, October 2022 25,715 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,407 ha Chobe fire, September 2016 3,840 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,235 ha Chobe fire, August 2022 3,832 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,911 ha Chobe fire, July 2022 2,033 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,371 ha Chobe fire, October 2016 2,703 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,320 ha Chobe fire, September 2023 3,317 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Chobe where it started33,436 ha reached on 14 Sept1.6 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14 Sept | 34.6 °C | 21 % | 45 km/h | 0.4 mm | Very high 48 |
| 15 Sept | 34.1 °C | 21 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 16 Sept | 34.5 °C | 17 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 17 Sept | 34.4 °C | 12 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 18 Sept | 33.8 °C | 15 % | 57 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 66 |
| 19 Sept | 32.0 °C | 24 % | 68 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 68 |
| 20 Sept | 28.5 °C | 30 % | 54 km/h | 1.3 mm | High 35 |
| 21 Sept after | 25.9 °C | 45 % | 44 km/h | 1.6 mm | Moderate 16 |
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 21 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 77 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 45: 3.0 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 · 893Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 25,715 haChobe6 October 2022 · 12 days · 18 km away
- 145,805 haChobe29 September 2018 · 20 days · 20 km away
- 28,973 haChobe7 September 2020 · 10 days · 25 km away
- 8,343 haChobe26 August 2017 · 5 days · 27 km away
- 18,246 haChobe25 September 2021 · 7 days · 30 km away
- 10,515 haChobe4 October 2022 · 6 days · 34 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Chobe fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 14 September 2026 and 20 September 2026: 7 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 33,213 hectares (332.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Chobe (33,436 ha, 1.6 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 34.6 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 68 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 68, 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.
Report an error
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 893 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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.