Burned area
satellite only18,230ha
Perimeter published by GWIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 1 Aug 2017 – 18 Aug 2017
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
AO · Angola · –
Capenda-Camulemba fire, 1 August 2017 Capenda-Camulemba
Out · last detection 19 Aug 2017, 23:16 UTC
The fire started on 1 August 2017 in Capenda-Camulemba, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 18,230 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 7th largest in Lunda Norte since 2016 (of 297 with a page). Number 8 in Angola in 2017, of 158.
Use this data
Compare with…
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-10-27matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only18days
1 Aug 2017 to 18 Aug 2017: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 19 Aug 2017, 23:16 UTC
+− cross-check
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.
Start
satellite only1 Aug 2017
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 1 Aug 2017
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
The worst day
satellite only2,848MW
Total radiative power on 16 August 2017; hotspots that day: 125.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 16 Aug 2017
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model44.2FWI · very high
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 60.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 1 Aug 2017, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model33.0°C · 16% RH
High of 33.0 °C and minimum humidity of 16% on 1 August 2017; gusts of 49 km/h on 14 August 2017.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 1 Aug 2017 – 18 Aug 2017
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
logLast day with fire: 25 August 2017 → 18 August 2017.
-
logStart date: 25 July 2017 → 1 August 2017.
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
logLast day with fire: 18 August 2017 → 25 August 2017.
-
logStart date: 1 August 2017 → 25 July 2017.
-
· reconstructed GHSLPopulation and built-up area computed
Area logged each night
Move the slider to see which area the page published each day.
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/capenda-camulemba-2017-08?v=2026-10-27A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire capenda-camulemba-2017-08.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-08-01 | 30 | 704 | 33 | 18.9 | 16 | 13.9 | 29.5 | 0 | 44.2 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2017-08-02 | 54 | 1,074 | 30.4 | 18.4 | 23 | 13.1 | 24.5 | 0 | 42.3 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2017-08-03 | 31 | 433 | 32.2 | 20.9 | 18 | 13.4 | 37.1 | 0 | 42.9 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2017-08-04 | 49 | 987 | 32.6 | 20.5 | 17 | 13.4 | 30.6 | 0 | 43.1 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2017-08-05 | 13 | 186 | 30.8 | 19.1 | 19 | 10.5 | 24.8 | 0 | 40.5 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2017-08-06 | 25 | 975 | 31.4 | 17.7 | 17 | 11.9 | 35.3 | 0 | 42.1 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2017-08-07 | 101 | 1,418 | 32.2 | 18.8 | 17 | 13.2 | 33.5 | 0 | 43.7 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2017-08-08 | 107 | 2,268 | 31.9 | 20.4 | 20 | 12.4 | 28.1 | 0 | 43.1 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2017-08-09 | 46 | 755 | 30.8 | 19 | 18 | 14.8 | 37.8 | 0 | 45.8 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2017-08-10 | 70 | 1,993 | 30.2 | 18.2 | 16 | 15.6 | 28.4 | 0 | 46.9 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2017-08-11 | 17 | 286 | 30.1 | 17.4 | 16 | 14.4 | 38.9 | 0 | 45.9 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2017-08-12 | 20 | 196 | 31.5 | 18 | 18 | 15.3 | 41.4 | 0 | 47.1 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2017-08-13 | 35 | 350 | 32.3 | 20.4 | 16 | 17.3 | 46.8 | 0 | 49.5 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2017-08-14 | 26 | 299 | 32 | 20.7 | 15 | 18.1 | 49 | 0 | 50.7 | extremo | 1 |
| 2017-08-15 | 33 | 385 | 32 | 20.3 | 14 | 16.3 | 43.9 | 0 | 48.9 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2017-08-16 | 125 | 2,848 | 32.9 | 20.1 | 14 | 15 | 35.3 | 0 | 47.7 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2017-08-17 | 59 | 470 | 32.1 | 15.4 | 13 | 11.8 | 21.6 | 0 | 44.7 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2017-08-18 | 22 | 238 | 30.5 | 18.1 | 23 | 11.2 | 29.9 | 0 | 41.5 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2017-08-19 | 15 | 321 | 31.9 | 20.2 | 18 | 12.1 | 29.2 | 0 | 42.6 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2017-08-20 | 0 | 0 | 32.2 | 18.8 | 22 | 13.6 | 34.9 | 0 | 44.3 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2017-08-21 | 0 | 0 | 31.7 | 19.8 | 17 | 14.8 | 38.9 | 0 | 45.8 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2017-08-22 | 0 | 0 | 31.8 | 19.4 | 14 | 15.8 | 42.8 | 0 | 47.9 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2017-08-23 | 0 | 0 | 32.7 | 18.5 | 16 | 11.4 | 23.8 | 0 | 43.4 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2017-08-24 | 0 | 0 | 33.1 | 19 | 21 | 9.8 | 21.2 | 0 | 42 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2017-08-25 | 0 | 0 | 32.9 | 19.7 | 13 | 11.3 | 21.2 | 0 | 44.7 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2017-08-26 | 0 | 0 | 33.9 | 20.7 | 11 | 15.5 | 46.4 | 0 | 51.9 | extremo | 0 |
| 2017-08-27 | 0 | 0 | 30.9 | 20.2 | 25 | 10.8 | 21.6 | 0 | 40.8 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2017-08-28 | 0 | 0 | 32.6 | 19.5 | 25 | 7.9 | 24.5 | 0 | 37.8 | alto | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: GWIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0), GHSL (JRC). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 18,230ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 18days
- 1 Aug 2017 – 18 Aug 2017
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 1 Aug
- 2017
- Heat detections
- 878
- in a single hotspot: 0 MW
- Danger at start
- 44
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 852MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
1 Aug18 Aug
19 Aug 2017
How it evolved, day by day
1 Aug
5 Aug
9 Aug
13 Aug
16 Aug
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
49km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
50% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 9,865 ha in 2016. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 9,166 ha that had burned before.
- 3,680 ha Capenda-Camulemba fire, July 2016 6,458 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,439 ha Capenda-Camulemba fire, August 2016 33,996 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 193 ha Capenda-Camulemba fire, July 2016 5,036 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
-
Capenda-Camulemba where it started18,348 ha1.8 %
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.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2015Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20
Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2015, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
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)
Started with 60 days without rain: 84 % of the area in Angola
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Aug | 33.0 °C | 16 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 2 Aug | 30.4 °C | 23 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 3 Aug | 32.2 °C | 18 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 4 Aug | 32.6 °C | 17 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 5 Aug | 30.8 °C | 19 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 6 Aug | 31.4 °C | 17 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 7 Aug | 32.2 °C | 17 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 8 Aug | 31.9 °C | 20 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 9 Aug | 30.8 °C | 18 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 10 Aug | 30.2 °C | 16 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 11 Aug | 30.1 °C | 16 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 12 Aug | 31.5 °C | 18 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 13 Aug | 32.3 °C | 16 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 14 Aug | 32.0 °C | 15 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 15 Aug | 32.0 °C | 14 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 16 Aug | 32.9 °C | 14 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 17 Aug | 32.1 °C | 13 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 18 Aug | 30.5 °C | 23 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 19 Aug after | 31.9 °C | 18 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 20 Aug after | 32.2 °C | 22 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 21 Aug after | 31.7 °C | 17 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 22 Aug after | 31.8 °C | 14 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 23 Aug after | 32.7 °C | 16 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 24 Aug after | 33.1 °C | 21 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 25 Aug after | 32.9 °C | 13 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 26 Aug after | 33.9 °C | 11 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 27 Aug after | 30.9 °C | 25 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 28 Aug after | 32.6 °C | 25 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 44.2, a minimum humidity of 16% and more than two months without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 29.
FWI at the start
44.2
Minimum humidity
16 %
Days without rain
60+
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Capenda-Camulemba fire, 1 August 2017
18,230 ha
18 days
FWI 44.2
Min. humidity 16 %
Capenda-Camulemba fire, August 2024
5,422 ha
19 days
FWI 43.9
Min. humidity 16 %
54 km away, in 2024
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Capenda-Camulemba fire, July 2019
5,724 ha
15 days
FWI 43.2
Min. humidity 16 %
46 km away, in 2019
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 3.6 mm on 4 Aug.
Capenda-Camulemba fire, July 2019
13,954 ha
17 days
FWI 43.6
Min. humidity 18 %
9 km away, in 2019
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Saurimo fire, August 2024
5,836 ha
19 days
FWI 43.1
Min. humidity 16 %
122 km away, in 2024
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Cacolo fire, August 2022
5,266 ha
16 days
FWI 46.0
Min. humidity 16 %
89 km away, in 2022
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.6 mm on 5 Sept.
What happened to them
- 13 days
- median duration
- 5,986 ha
- median area
- 10 %
- went past 10,000 ha
- 2.4 mm
- rain at the end (median; 11 of 29 had it)
It was 3.0 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 18 days, against 13 days.
None of its 29 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 18 of 29, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.4 mm.
This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it
How it ended
—first rain
—no rain in ten days
49km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 18 Aug, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 11 of 29, with a median of 2.4 mm.
Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)
How a twin is chosen
- Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
- Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
- Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
- Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
- They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 25 Jul 2017
After · 25 Aug 2017
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
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 · 0Every 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 time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 13,954 haCapenda-Camulemba20 July 2019 · 17 days · 9 km away
- 209,761 haCapenda-Camulemba16 July 2026 · 50 days · 13 km away
- 12,513 haCapenda-Camulemba12 August 2019 · 15 days · 16 km away
- 33,996 haCapenda-Camulemba2 August 2016 · 15 days · 21 km away
- 37,971 haCapenda-Camulemba4 August 2024 · 22 days · 22 km away
- 173,807 haCapenda-Camulemba15 July 2026 · 51 days · 33 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Capenda-Camulemba fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 August 2017 and 18 August 2017: 18 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 18,230 hectares (182.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Capenda-Camulemba (18,348 ha, 1.8 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 33.0 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 49 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.
- How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
- Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 29. Their median duration was 13 days and their median area 5,986 ha; 10 % went past 10,000 ha. None of its 29 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 18 of 29, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.4 mm.
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 · 4 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 25 August 2017 → 18 August 2017.
- Start date: 25 July 2017 → 1 August 2017.
- Last day with fire: 18 August 2017 → 25 August 2017.
- Start date: 1 August 2017 → 25 July 2017.
RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version
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. No 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.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2015, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.