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Chitato fire, 7 July 2018 Chitato

Out · last detection 10 Jul 2018, 12:17 UTC

The fire started on 7 July 2018 in Chitato, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,546 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 116th largest in Lunda Norte since 2016 (of 411 with a page). Number 22 in Angola in 2018, of 100.

Burnt area
8,546ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
7 Jul 2018 – 10 Jul 2018
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
7 Jul
2018
Heat detections
250
in a single hotspot: 501 MW
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
22.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 Jul 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Jul10 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

78910

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
42km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 46 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

42% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,434 ha in 2016, 2,282 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Chitato where it started
    8,598 ha reached on 7 Jul
    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)
7 Jul 31.6 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
8 Jul 31.9 °C 20 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
9 Jul 32.7 °C 18 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
10 Jul 32.5 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
11 Jul after 32.7 °C 16 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
12 Jul after 33.3 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
13 Jul after 33.3 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
14 Jul after 33.4 °C 18 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
15 Jul after 33.1 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
16 Jul after 32.0 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
17 Jul after 31.1 °C 20 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
18 Jul after 30.5 °C 22 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
19 Jul after 31.9 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
20 Jul after 32.4 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 30 Jun 2018
After · 17 Jul 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 · 250Every 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 Chitato fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 7 July 2018 and 10 July 2018: 4 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 8,546 hectares (85.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Chitato (8,598 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.7 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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.