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Cahombo fire, July 2018 Cahombo

Out · last detection 25 Jul 2018, 12:36 UTC

The fire started on 23 July 2018 in Cahombo, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,055 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 68th largest in Malanje since 2016 (of 127 with a page). Number 65 in Angola in 2018, of 100.

Burnt area
6,055ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
23 Jul 2018 – 25 Jul 2018
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
23 Jul
2018
Heat detections
170
in a single hotspot: 236 MW
Danger at start
47
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
9.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

25 Jul 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Jul25 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

232425

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
43km/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

43% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,676 ha in 2016, 1,222 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,607 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Cahombo where it started
    6,095 ha reached on 23 Jul
    1.1 %

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)
23 Jul 33.4 °C 15 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
24 Jul 31.8 °C 19 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
25 Jul 31.1 °C 20 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
26 Jul after 31.9 °C 18 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
27 Jul after 31.7 °C 19 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
28 Jul after 33.2 °C 19 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
29 Jul after 32.2 °C 23 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
30 Jul after 33.0 °C 21 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
31 Jul after 32.5 °C 23 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
1 Aug after 31.4 °C 27 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
2 Aug after 32.1 °C 34 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
3 Aug after 32.9 °C 33 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
4 Aug after 32.9 °C 33 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 37

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Jul 2018
After · 1 Aug 2018

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 · 170Every 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 Cahombo fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 23 July 2018 and 25 July 2018: 3 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 6,055 hectares (60.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cahombo (6,095 ha, 1.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.4 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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.