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Chitato fire, 20 July 2020 Chitato

Out · last detection 24 Jul 2020, 00:12 UTC

The fire started on 20 July 2020 in Chitato, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,175 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 245th largest in Lunda Norte since 2016 (of 411 with a page). Number 72 in Angola in 2020, of 123.

Burnt area
6,175ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
20 Jul 2020 – 23 Jul 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
20 Jul
2020
Heat detections
121
in a single hotspot: 351 MW
Danger at start
43
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

24 Jul 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Jul23 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

2021222324

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
36km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

93% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,861 ha in 2016, 4,242 ha in 2017, 943 ha in 2018, 3,752 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,728 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Chitato where it started
    4,147 ha reached on 20 Jul
    0.4 %

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)
20 Jul 31.8 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
21 Jul 32.7 °C 17 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
22 Jul 33.3 °C 17 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
23 Jul 32.9 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
24 Jul after 32.5 °C 17 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
25 Jul after 32.7 °C 19 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
26 Jul after 33.1 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
27 Jul after 31.7 °C 19 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
28 Jul after 32.2 °C 19 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
29 Jul after 32.2 °C 20 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
30 Jul after 33.4 °C 18 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
31 Jul after 33.4 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
1 Aug after 34.7 °C 19 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
2 Aug after 34.3 °C 22 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Jul 2020
After · 30 Jul 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 · 121Every 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 20 July 2020 and 23 July 2020: 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 6,175 hectares (61.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Chitato (4,147 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.3 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, 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.