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Chitembo fire, August 2024 Chitembo

Out · last detection 21 Aug 2024, 23:37 UTC

The fire started on 12 August 2024 in Chitembo, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,487 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 21th largest in Bié since 2016 (of 64 with a page). Number 31 in Angola in 2024, of 135.

Burnt area
9,487ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
12 Aug 2024 – 21 Aug 2024
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
12 Aug
2024
Heat detections
392
in a single hotspot: 154 MW
Danger at start
47
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
5.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

21 Aug 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Aug21 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

12131415161718192021

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
49km/h · peak gust
8%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

63% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 568 ha in 2016, 920 ha in 2018, 1,744 ha in 2019, 835 ha in 2020, 1,012 ha in 2021, 650 ha in 2022, 1,715 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,987 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Chitembo where it started
    9,521 ha reached on 8 Aug
    0.5 %

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)
8 Aug 30.9 °C 10 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
9 Aug 29.8 °C 11 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
10 Aug 29.5 °C 11 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
11 Aug 29.5 °C 11 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
12 Aug 29.7 °C 11 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
13 Aug 29.4 °C 11 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
14 Aug 29.8 °C 11 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
15 Aug 29.8 °C 10 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
16 Aug 29.3 °C 12 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
17 Aug 29.3 °C 11 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
18 Aug 29.7 °C 10 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
19 Aug 28.6 °C 11 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
20 Aug 29.2 °C 11 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
21 Aug 29.4 °C 11 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
22 Aug after 29.2 °C 8 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
23 Aug after 28.9 °C 11 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
24 Aug after 29.1 °C 13 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
25 Aug after 29.7 °C 12 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
26 Aug after 30.2 °C 10 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
27 Aug after 30.0 °C 11 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
28 Aug after 30.6 °C 11 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
29 Aug after 31.5 °C 11 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
30 Aug after 31.7 °C 10 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
31 Aug after 30.5 °C 17 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
1 Sept after 29.7 °C 18 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
2 Sept after 29.1 °C 15 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
3 Sept after 28.6 °C 14 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
4 Sept after 28.2 °C 12 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
5 Sept after 29.0 °C 10 % 33 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 · 5 Aug 2024
After · 28 Aug 2024

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 15 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 48 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 36: 2.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak48 µg/m³
Days over the guideline15 days
PM1068 µg/m³
Optical depth0.75
101112131415161718192021222324
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 392Every 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 Chitembo fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 12 August 2024 and 21 August 2024: 10 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 9,487 hectares (94.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Chitembo (9,521 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.9 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 58, 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.

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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.