Chobe fire, 29 October 2026 Chobe
The fire started on 29 October 2026 in Chobe, Botswana, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,346 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 117th largest in Chobe since 2016 (of 133 with a page). Number 189 in Botswana in 2026, of 217.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Chobe · 2018Chobe · 2026Chobe · 2017Chobe · 2020
Is it still active?
Satellites detected fire on 1 Nov 2026, 12:23 UTC. Everything suggests it is still burning. Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
- Burnt area
- 2,346ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 4days
- 29 Oct 2026 – 1 Nov 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- subdistricts
- Started on
- 29 Oct
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 78
- in a single hotspot: 57 MW
- Danger at start
- 51
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 189MW
- 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 23 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
82% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,918 ha in 2018, 454 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,926 ha that had burned before.
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 started2,365 ha reached on 29 Oct0.1 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area 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) · forecast models, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 29 Oct | 38.2 °C | 18 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 30 Oct | 35.8 °C | 20 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 31 Oct | 36.5 °C | 17 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 1 Nov | 37.5 °C | 15 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
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 31 October 2026 the air beside the fire reached 242 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 114: 7.6 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 · 78Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Chobe fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 29 October 2026 to 1 November 2026 (4 days). The perimeter dates it from 30 October 2026 to 31 October 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,346 hectares (23.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Chobe (2,365 ha, 0.1 %).
- Is the Chobe fire still active?
- Yes: satellites detected fire on 1 Nov 2026, 12:23 UTC. Check the emergency service for the official status.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 38.2 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, 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
History of this page · 3 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 31 October 2026.
- Area: 6,740 → 2,346 ha.
- Start date: 28 October 2026 → 29 October 2026.
- Page published (6,740 ha).
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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 30 October 2026 to 31 October 2026. 78 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: ECMWF IFS model, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives.
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.