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Cacolo fire, 16 August 2019 Cacolo

Out · last detection 26 Aug 2019, 11:52 UTC

The fire started on 16 August 2019 in Cacolo, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,652 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 175th largest in Lunda Sul since 2016 (of 240 with a page). Number 161 in Angola in 2019, of 207.

Burnt area
5,652ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
11days
16 Aug 2019 – 26 Aug 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
16 Aug
2019
Heat detections
221
in a single hotspot: 98 MW
Danger at start
45
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
3.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

26 Aug 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Aug26 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

1617181920212223242526

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

The weather it burned in

30°high
53km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

It had gone 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.9 mm on 30 Aug.

This area had burned before

39% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 904 ha in 2016, 1,872 ha in 2017, 825 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,231 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Cacolo where it started
    5,679 ha reached on 15 Aug
    0.5 %

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)
16 Aug 27.1 °C 21 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
17 Aug 29.2 °C 17 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
18 Aug 29.9 °C 21 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
19 Aug 29.9 °C 19 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
20 Aug 29.0 °C 16 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
21 Aug 29.5 °C 17 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
22 Aug 28.7 °C 22 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
23 Aug 28.0 °C 21 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
24 Aug 28.5 °C 19 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
25 Aug 29.5 °C 21 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
26 Aug 30.2 °C 23 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
27 Aug after 30.9 °C 33 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
28 Aug after 29.8 °C 36 % 27 km/h 0.2 mm High 30
29 Aug after 27.6 °C 41 % 29 km/h 0.9 mm Moderate 21
30 Aug after 29.5 °C 40 % 29 km/h 1.9 mm Moderate 14

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Aug 2019
After · 2 Sept 2019

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 221Every 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 Angola ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Cacolo fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 16 August 2019 and 26 August 2019: 11 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 5,652 hectares (56.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cacolo (5,679 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.2 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, class Very high.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Angola (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.