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AO · Angola · →

Cuchi fire, 11 August 2021 Cuchi

Out · last detection 21 Aug 2021, 13:19 UTC

The fire started on 11 August 2021 in Cuchi, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,771 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 508th largest in Cuando Cubango since 2016 (of 658 with a page). Number 95 in Angola in 2021, of 126.

Burnt area
5,771ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
11 Aug 2021 – 20 Aug 2021
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
11 Aug
2021
Heat detections
236
in a single hotspot: 66 MW
Danger at start
50
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
2.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

21 Aug 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Aug20 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

1112131415161718192021

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
39km/h · peak gust
7%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

68% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 675 ha in 2018, 3,731 ha in 2019, 748 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,920 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Cuchi where it started
    5,821 ha reached on 7 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)
11 Aug 31.0 °C 9 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
12 Aug 30.5 °C 9 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
13 Aug 31.1 °C 7 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
14 Aug 32.1 °C 8 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
15 Aug 31.2 °C 15 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
16 Aug 30.7 °C 14 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
17 Aug 30.2 °C 11 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
18 Aug 31.2 °C 10 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
19 Aug 32.3 °C 10 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
20 Aug 31.2 °C 11 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
21 Aug after 31.6 °C 12 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
22 Aug after 32.6 °C 12 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
23 Aug after 31.0 °C 19 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
24 Aug after 30.8 °C 20 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
25 Aug after 33.5 °C 15 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
26 Aug after 34.2 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
27 Aug after 34.2 °C 13 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
28 Aug after 31.3 °C 12 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
29 Aug after 30.7 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
30 Aug after 32.6 °C 11 % 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 · 4 Aug 2021
After · 27 Aug 2021

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 · 236Every 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

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Cuchi fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 11 August 2021 and 20 August 2021: 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 5,771 hectares (57.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cuchi (5,821 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.3 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, 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.