Skip to content
worldfires
AO · Angola · →

Cacolo fire, August 2020 Cacolo

Out · last detection 19 Aug 2020, 13:01 UTC

The fire started on 11 August 2020 in Cacolo, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,502 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 70th largest in Lunda Sul since 2016 (of 240 with a page). Number 29 in Angola in 2020, of 123.

Burnt area
8,502ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
11 Aug 2020 – 19 Aug 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
11 Aug
2020
Heat detections
269
in a single hotspot: 149 MW
Danger at start
47
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
4.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

19 Aug 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Aug19 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

111213141516171819

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
45km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

64% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 101 ha in 2016, 4,130 ha in 2017, 672 ha in 2018, 672 ha in 2019.

What happened to each town

  1. Cacolo where it started
    8,547 ha reached on 10 Aug
    0.7 %

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)
11 Aug 31.6 °C 18 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
12 Aug 31.8 °C 16 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
13 Aug 31.8 °C 17 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
14 Aug 31.8 °C 15 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
15 Aug 32.2 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
16 Aug 31.2 °C 20 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
17 Aug 32.5 °C 18 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
18 Aug 33.6 °C 15 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
19 Aug 29.6 °C 24 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
20 Aug after 30.1 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
21 Aug after 30.8 °C 25 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
22 Aug after 30.5 °C 28 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
23 Aug after 30.3 °C 26 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
24 Aug after 30.8 °C 26 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
25 Aug after 31.8 °C 23 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
26 Aug after 31.2 °C 27 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
27 Aug after 31.6 °C 31 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
28 Aug after 29.9 °C 32 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
29 Aug after 30.9 °C 38 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 31

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Aug 2020
After · 26 Aug 2020

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 · 269Every 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 11 August 2020 and 19 August 2020: 9 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 8,502 hectares (85.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cacolo (8,547 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.6 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 45 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 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.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy.

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.